Tuesday, during the late evening hours, the Romanian Government issued an emergency decree amending the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure. As part of this measure, the Cabinet introduced a much narrower definition of the criminal offence called abuse of office. Furthermore, the governing body also adopted the draft law on amnesty, which will be debated by the Romanian Parliament using probably the expedited procedure. On behalf of the Presidia of the Hungarian People's Party of Transylvania and the Hungarian National Council of Transylvania, we adamantly protest against these governmental measures and express our solidarity with the tens of thousands of people, who are demonstrating in the streets.

In our view, it is unacceptable that after a quarter of a century from the regime change, decision makers in Bucharest still rule the country taking into account exclusively their own economic and political interests. Corruption – entrenched by the governmental orders issued yesterday – is the arch-enemy of Romanian democracy. Moreover, it is extremely generalised and represents a risk to national security.

The party political, as well as its ancillary civic, community represented by the signatories of this declaration of protest, have advocated consistently – already from the establishment of the two organisations – the causes of clean and transparent public life, of assuming political responsibility, of corruption-free public administration and accountability. This is why we support the demands formulated by the tens of thousand demonstrating in the streets and ensure them of our solidarity.

As leaders of the Hungarian People's Party of Transylvania and of the Hungarian National Council of Transylvania, we ask our members and followers to support the protests by participating in them.

We believe that in the spirit of the events, which unfolded in Timişoara/Temesvár in 1989, the Hungarian national community of Transylvania can be a part of the changes that are necessary in Romania.

Let us meet in the streets!

Szilágyi Zsolt,

President of the Hungarian People's Party of Transylvania

and

Sándor Krisztina,

Executive President of the Hungarian National Council of Transylvania

Cluj/Kolozsvár, the 1^st of February 2017