On Thursday, September 16, the Romanian Constitutional Court scheduled for September 28 its first key decision, on the no-confidence motion against the Government, and invited the Government and Parliament to express their arguments in a second case opened by Senate head Anca Dragu against the Executive, Economica.net reported.

The Court thus postpones its decisions and keeps prime minister Florin Citu in his seat until after the Liberals' congress on September 25, when PM Citu hopes to defeat incumbent Liberal head Ludovic Orban.

Under the best-case scenario, the Liberals and reformist USR-PLUS would resume negotiations for forming the ruling coalition again. Under another scenario, failure to form a coalition would push the major parties to accept early elections for the first time in three decades of parliamentary activity.

In the first case to be ruled by the Constitutional Court, the Parliament already "pleaded guilty" after the Liberals (PNL, at rule) and Social Democrats (PSD) formed an ad-hoc coalition aimed at keeping the Executive in place - each of them pursuing their own interest. Despite this, the Court's ruling remains unpredictable since facts indicate that the Parliament began procedure related to the no-confidence motion as soon as the political parties sent enough lawmakers to put in motion the procedures.

Ruling in favour of the Government would be extremely awkward and open the door to an unusual (procedural) way of blocking a no-confidence motion without a vote in the joint sitting of the Chambers.

The second case the Constitutional Court has to rule is related to appointing new ministers after the junior ruling party USR-PLUS pulled out of the ruling coalition. Specifically, USR-PLUS and Senate speaker Anca Dragu argue that PM Florin Citu should have nominated replacements for the USR-PLUS ministers and ask for Parliament's vote since the political structure of the ruling coalition changed. 

andrei@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea)