The Romanian American Chamber of Commerce

The Romanian Parliament voted the new government led by Social Democrat Victor Ponta into office on Monday. Ponta's government, formed by the Social Liberal Union coalition of Social Democrats (PSD) and Liberals (PNL), replaces the Democratic Liberal-dominated government led by Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, who lost a censure motion in the Parliament in late April. Ponta's government received the support of 284 MPs, with 92 votes against.

The governing program of the government formed by Romania's designated prime minister Victor Ponta, which was submitted in the Parliament on Thursday evening, mentions the immediate introduction of a moratorium on shale gas exploitation until developing European-level studies on the impact of hydraulic fractioning procedures on the environment are concluded. The Ponta Government, formed after incumbent PM Ungureanu's government was voted out of office a week ago, is due to be approved by the Parliament next week.

Romanian Social Democratic Party (PSD) leader Victor Ponta, who was designated to form a new government following the fall of the Ungureanu government in a parliamentary vote on Friday, announced the list of his ministers on Tuesday evening. He said he would present his government and governing priorities in the Parliament on Monday and pointed out that the political union of Social Democrats and Liberals (USL) now numbers 229 MPs of a total of 231 needed to vote for the new government.

• See the list of ministers in Ponta's proposed government

Romanian President Traian Basescu announced on Friday evening that Victor Ponta, leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and one of the leaders of the opposition USL union of Social Democrats and Liberals, is the designated to form a new government. Ponta's designation comes following Traian Razvan Ungureanu government's fall in a censure motion in the Parliament today.

Just as the Romanian government cannot take back a farm that was restituted to the family from whom it was stolen without paying its fair value, so it cannot confiscate another family’s right to receive a different farm in restitution by payment of a mere pittance of its true value.  But that is precisely what the Romanian Government contemplates doing through a draft law that would confiscate 85% of the property rights of thousands of victims of Romanian communism and fascism - inviolable rights that were granted to them twelve years ago by law. The Draft Law proposes to take 85% of the value of all pending claims by owners of properties that were seized by Romania's Communist government between 1945 and 1989 without compensation. It is proffered in total disregard of Romania’s constitutional provisions prohibiting such acts and in violation of Protocol One of the European Convention of Human Rights to which Romania is a signatory and which recognizes property rights as human rights.

• Author Mark A. Meyer is Chairman, Romanian-American Chamber of Commerce