Parliamentarians will decide on Wednesday whether to allow anti-graft prosecutors to investigate former Social Democrat (PSD) Prime Minister Adrian Nastase. Debates on the issue started at 10 am and the vote is scheduled for 12pm. There were 212 Deputies present of a total of 334 as debates started.

UPDATE: Parliamentarians approved the anti-graft investigation against Nastase by 158 votes for and 128 against of a total of 286 expressed votes while 2 were canceled. Chamber of Deputies Spokesperson Roberta Anastase declared after the meeting that the vote is an important step to re-build the Parliament's credibility.

On Tuesday, the internal regulations in the Chamber of Deputies were modified: the Parliament can now approve the investigation of a colleague by a simple majority, namely a 50+1of the votes instead of two thirds of the votes.

Chamber of Deputies speaker Roberta Anastase declared last week that MPs would cast a correct vote and prove that the Parliament was not protecting high corruption cases. Moreover, she underlined that all Democratic Liberal deputies would vote for the investigation of Adrian Nastase in an open vote. She added that Social Democratic Deputies would follow suit, as Nastase urged them to.

Romania's former PM is investigated for corruption in several cases.