The Romanian Social Democratic Party (SPD), with which the Party of European Socialists has cut off ties in the wake of controversial judicial reforms, suffered three major setbacks between Sunday 26 and Monday 27 May.
The Romanian SPD was first overtaken by the Ludovic Orban PNL, affiliated to the EPP, in the European elections, with the PNL winning 14 seats. The SPD is in second position with 9 seats, followed by another pro-European formation concerned about the abuses of the Romanian power in place, in this case, the formation of the former European Commissioner for Agriculture, Dacian Cioloș (Alliance 2020 USR-PLUS), which won 8 seats.
On Monday 27 May, it was the leader of the SPD himself, Liviu Dragnea, who was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in prison for crimes of corruption.
As for the referendum called by the country's President, Klaus Iohannis, on the same day as the European elections - in particular on the controversial reforms introduced by the Social Democratic government on impunity for corruption crimes, but also on how to legislate on reforms of the judicial system - it also reached the participation threshold required to be validated, namely 41.28% against a 49% participation rate in the European elections, a record in the country.
And the result is clear, according to the Romanian media, which gave the results on Monday afternoon: 81% of Romanian voters who took part in the referendum reportedly agreed with the country's President to ban the amnesty offered in cases of corruption, as proposed in a recent amendment to the Criminal Code. They also answered 'yes' to the question of whether the emergency order method should be banned for legislating in judicial matters. The referendum was not binding, but the country's president said last week that political consequences had to be drawn from it.
The ruling coalition parties had called on voters to boycott the referendum vote, which they saw as an electoral operation by President Iohannis. They have also obviously failed here. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)