The Save Romania Union (USR) and National Liberal Party (PNL) parliamentary groups in the Chamber of Deputies on Monday filed a challenge with the Constitutional Court over what they described as an 'abusive decision by the new majority' in the lower house regarding the appointment of two members of its Permanent Bureau, the leaders of the two parties' groups of deputies, Diana Stoica and Gabriel Andronache, announced.

'At the level of the PNL and USR parliamentary groups in the Chamber of Deputies, together with group leader Gabriel Andronache, we signed and filed today a challenge with the Constitutional Court over that abusive decision made by the new toxic majority in Parliament, PSD-AUR [Social Democratic Party the Alliance for the Union of Romanians] and extremists, through which they brought two representatives of extremist parties into the leadership of the Chamber of Deputies,' Diana Stoica said at Parliament.

USR deputy Alexandru Dimitriu cited an article of the Constitution under which the parties' representation in Parliament must be respected, arguing that this requirement had not been met.

'This is not about positions. We are not fighting for positions, but for normality in the democracy we want in Romania. The people have decided that certain parties should be represented in Parliament in certain proportions. And those proportions must also be reflected in the Permanent Bureau. This is the problem with this beginning of a coup d'etat by AUR and PSD, namely that they have altered the will of the people. (...) Thirteen SOS deputies generate one seat on the Permanent Bureau, while 54 PNL deputies also generate just one seat. (...) This is a flagrant violation of the constitutional provisions, a flagrant violation of the rule of law,' Dimitriu said.

Gabriel Andronache pointed out that 'the action they took in the Permanent Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies is also part of the undisclosed agreements they reached before the start of the parliamentary session'.

'We should not allow this abuse to continue. That is why we filed this challenge, to counter the abuse being committed by the new toxic PSD-AUR-SOS governing alliance,' Andronache said.

On Tuesday, 1 September, the first plenary sitting of the Chamber of Deputies in the ordinary parliamentary session began with disputes among MPs over the allocation of positions on the Permanent Bureau. PNL and USR deputies challenged the proposal presented to the plenary and subsequently walked out.

On Wednesday, PNL and USR deputies announced that they would not take part in any activity of the Chamber of Deputies - plenary sittings, Permanent Bureau meetings, meetings of the committee of parliamentary group leaders or committee meetings. USR Senate group leader Sorin Sipos announced that the decision changing the composition of the Chamber of Deputies' Permanent Bureau would be challenged at the Constitutional Court. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Catalina Matei; EN - writing by: Simona Iacob)