The Judicial Commission of Romanian Senate endorsed the privatization law of Romanian Commercial Bank (BCR) on Tuesday afternoon, after it had previously postponed the vote in the morning for next week.

The vote unfolded in the absence of the opposition members, on grounds of time saving as the law is sill to be discussed in the plenary by the joint houses of the Parliament, according to the chairman of the JC Peter Ekstein Kovacs.

The opposition senators disapproved with the action and blamed their governing coalition senators of lack of fair-play. The BCR privatization draft law is to be debated upon in the plenary July. The opposition Social Democrats threaten to vote against the privatization of the most important Romanian bank.

The public bid for the BCR privatization was won by the Austrian Bank Erste in December 2005.