December 14 (SeeNews) - Romania's opposition National Liberal Party (PNL), Save Romania Union (USR) and Popular Movement Party (PMP) have filed a censure motion against the government due to its overall poor performance, local media reported on Friday.
The document was signed by 163 members of parliament, Agerpres news agency reported.
The opposition says the cabinet of prime minister Viorica Dancila has postponed all the commitments of the governance programme until after 2021, according to Agerpress.
The censure motion must be debated in a plenary session of parliament within five days after it is submitted. A vote must be held within three days after that. The motion needs to win 233 votes to pass.
"PNL wants another government for Romania and believes this is the worst cabinet in Romania's history, and must be replaced as soon as possible by another one that has the capacity to exercise the presidency of the Council of the EU in the best way and to reap maximum benefits from this mission," PNL chairman Ludovic Orban said earlier this week.
The government has been criticized by Romanian president Klaus Iohannis and by opposition parties for not being prepared to take over the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the EU on January 1, 2019.
Last week, the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) lost four MPs who joined a party set up by former Social-Democrat MP and ex-prime minister Victor Ponta. As a result, the coalition government comprising left-wing PSD and centre-right Liberal-Democrat Alliance (ALDE) lost its majority in the lower chamber of parliament and thus became dependent on the votes of ethnic minorities. Now PSD and ALDE hold among themselves 164 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, while the rest of the parties plus representatives of minorities and unaffiliated MPs control 165 seats.
PSD leader Liviu Dragnea has said, however, said that the party has nothing to fear and that it will defeat the censure motion when it is put to the vote in parliament. Out of a total of 465 seats in the lower chamber and the Senate, PSD controls 216 and ALDE controls a further 31.
The previous no-confidence motion against the government, in July, failed to win the necessary support in parliament to pass.
PNL has 93 MPs, while centre-right parties USR and PMP have 40 and 12 MPs, respectively. The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, which usually backs the PSD-ALDE government, has 30 seats. National minorities have 17 seats and independents hold 26 seats.
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