POLITICS - November 4th 2004
Senators refused yesterday to accept the Government request to agree by emergency procedure with its decision to pay the former King Michael 30 million euros for the Peles Castle. By OANA STANCU
Gyorgy Frunda Some 57 senators - half of them members of ruling [Social Democrat] Party (SDP) - blocked a Government draft law which aimed to solve by emergency procedure the issue of compensating former King Michael for the Peles Castle, which will remain under state ownership.
[Emergency procedure means a draft law is not debated over with regard to its wording and content, and is accepted in the form drafted by the government.]
The 30 million euros was to compensate the former King for the real-estate properties on the Peles Estate and their furbishing. The Executive draft law also provided for the former King Michael to get back the House of Knights in-kind; the right to use the Elisabeth Palace, in Bucharest, for the duration of his life and that of his eldest daughter, Margaret, and her husband, Radu Duda; and the right to use for special events the Peles and Pelisor Castles, and the Foisor building which were to stay in state ownership.
The government proposal was rejected with 57 votes against it, 27 votes for it, and eight abstentions.
Among top figures in the SDP ruling party voting against the proposal were the Senate Speaker Nicolae Vacaroiu, and senators Antonie Iorgovan, Adrian Paunescu and Sergiu Nicolaescu.
The Greater Romania Party and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (DUHR) said from the onset that their senators will vote against the bill, while the representatives of the National Liberal Party and of the Democrat Party said will abstain.
The most eloquent argument against the bill was put forward by Gyorgy Frunda, of the DUHR, who reminded that the
