Current president pushing for wrong reforms

This coming Sunday the Romanians are summoned to the ballot to elect a new president and at the same time vote in a referendum on whether the Senate, the upper house of Romania's bicameral parliament, should be permanently dissolved. The weekly Revista 22 writes that other reforms are much more important: "The best thing would be if [incumbent President] Traian Băsescu reformed the administration of the country … and replaced the [41] districts with nine to twelve regions. He has after all explained on several occasions that Bucharest must dispense with its excessive policy of centralisation. … But you can't claim to be popular and pro-European if you fight for centralism and the dissolution of the Senate at home. That's the place where the regions have the best chance of making themselves heard. And since the EU plans to increase funding for large administration units from 2013 on we should preserve the Senate out of pragmatism, if nothing else. … The solution is not what President Băsescu has proposed with the referendum, but rather to resuscitate the tasks of the upper chamber, in which the regions and their specific features and interests are represented."

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