National Liberal deputy for Maramureș Ionel Bogdan criticised the Social Democrats over Wednesday’s vote, 11 November, when the Chamber of Deputies set up an inquiry into migration. The statement appeared on Sunday in the local press, including Glasul MM. Bogdan says that “in front of the cameras, the PSD condemns extremism, and in Parliament it votes with AUR and legitimises its discourse.” That is his wording, not a quoted PSD position.

The Chamber passed the decision with 145 votes in favour, 83 against and two abstentions, Agerpres reported. Digi24, which gives the same figures, writes that the initiative belongs to MPs from S.O.S. România and AUR. Mediafax identifies the bill as PHCD 75/2026 and notes that one deputy who was present did not vote. Bogdan says the National Liberals and USR voted against and that PSD votes helped it pass. A party-by-party split is not in the Agerpres account used here, so that part stays the Liberal deputy’s claim.

The commission, as Agerpres describes it, covers the impact of migration on public order and national security, compliance with the law on foreigners, and the fight against illegal migration. Among its tasks: the legality of entry and stay, with a focus on flows from South Asia and South-East Asia; patterns of antisocial acts, from official statistics, broken down by nationality; secondary illegal migration, meaning a legal entry, including on a work permit, followed by an attempt to reach other EU states illegally; abuses by employers and intermediaries recruiting workers from those regions; cases in which foreign citizens are perpetrators of exploitation or trafficking; and the work of the General Inspectorate for Immigration, the Border Police and the National Agency against Trafficking in Persons. Agerpres says the report is due in 120 days. Mediafax, writing about the draft AUR presented before the vote, mentioned 60 days, a single extension of at most 30 days, and 15 members, in proportion to the groups. The two deadlines describe different stages of the text.

Bogdan asks whether AUR defends Romanians in the diaspora or imports the discourse used against them in Europe. “Millions of Romanians work in Italy, France, Germany and other states. At the same time, AUR proposes a parliamentary inquiry into migration and feeds fear and suspicion toward people who come to work legally in Romania.” He says illegal migration must be fought firmly and the law applied, but that people who work legally deserve respect, wherever they come from. On the PSD he adds that, for the Social Democrats, “only power, control and resources matter, and principles are sacrificed without hesitation.”

In Wednesday’s debate, as reported by Agerpres, AUR deputy Dan Tanasă said that on 31 December 2024 there were more than 101,000 workers from outside the European area, and more than 149,000 at the end of 2025, and that many would seek family-reunification visas. His projection, that 150,000 “can easily turn into 700,000 to a million”, is the speaker’s estimate, not an official figure. He quoted 2025 speeches by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, including the idea that mass migration would be an existential threat to Western civilisation. That, too, is a citation made by Tanasă.

The leader of the UDMR deputies, Csoma Botond, said in the same debate that the state must act against illegal migration, but that the problem raised by AUR is a false one, because Romania is not facing illegal migration but workers who have the right to stay and to work. He said that among the initiators is a person charged with inciting hatred against foreign workers. That accusation is Csoma’s. He also said AUR would want to record the commission’s work and post it on social networks, as “fuel for hate”, and he asked the centrist parties not to enter that game.

The photograph shows the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, not Wednesday’s sitting and not Ionel Bogdan. The image is by William John Gauthier and is published on Wikimedia Commons under the CC BY-SA 2.0 licence.

Source consulted: Ionel Bogdan: PSD condamnă extremismul în fața camerelor, dar în Parlament votează alături de AUR!.