Romania's Constitutional Court (CCR) decided on Thursday to postpone until September 12 a decision on the validation of the Sunday referendum to dismiss the president, in which not enough votes were cast to exceed a 50% turnout threshold needed for the ballot to take effect. The news was announced by a CCR judge, quoted by TV news channels. The Court decision to postpone such a decision does little to solve the political crisis affecting Romania for the past weeks. Romania's central bank governor was among the last to warn today that a calmer domestic political life would help alleviate pressures on the economy.

UPDATE CCR later issued a press release showing that the postponement of a decision was due to "contradicting data" regarding the number of people on electoral lists. The Court asked the Government to send by August 31 the updated permanent electoral lists based on which the referendum was organized. On Thursday morning, the Interior and Administration Ministry sent a decument to the CCR saying it cannot stand behind the number of people on permanent electoral lists, despite that a day before it had sent another official document showing the number of listed voters was the one valid on the date of the referendum, July 29 - that is, over 18 million voters.

According to CCR judge Tudorel Toader, as quoted by TV news channels, the decision to postpone a decision on the validation of the referendum was made so that all electoral lists used in the referendum be checked. And another judge, Aspazia Cojocaru, was quoted as saying that in her opinion the referendum should have been annulled because "everything was based on false data".

The Sunday referendum took into consideration the official lists of voters. Eventually, 46,24% of the total number of listed voters showed up and voted in the referendum, an overwhelming majority of which opt