Romania's parliament voted Friday to impeach President Traian Basescu in a spiraling political crisis that has raised warnings in the West that the country's democracy is under threat.

A total of 256 lawmakers out of 432 voted in favor of the move against the center-right Basescu, according to an official count, but the impeachment will only take effect if approved in a referendum within 30 days.

Romanian President Traian Basescu faced an impeachment vote Friday in a spiraling political crisis that has brought warnings from the country's EU partners that its democracy is under threat.

Basescu's arch-rival Prime Minister Victor Ponta sought to allay the widespread fears, pledging to travel to Brussels next week to "give assurances" to the bloc that Romania joined in 2007.

Romania's Prime Minister Victor Ponta on Friday said he was ready to revisit changes he'd made to the country's cultural body, after the overhaul led to widespread protests from the arts world.

Thousands of artists in Europe joined their Romanian counterparts in protest after Ponta issued an emergency order June 13 shifting control of the state-funded Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) from the presidency, held by rival Traian Basescu, to the senate.

Romania has fallen back into recession, official data showed Tuesday, with its gross domestic product shrinking by 0.1 percent in the first quarter, the second quarterly decrease in a row.

Romanian GDP had contracted by 0.2 percent in the last quarter of 2011.

Romania's new National Library opened its doors Monday in a monumental building in the capital city, more than 20 years after its foundations were laid under the communist regime.

"This is a superb transformation of grey, communist-era ruins," Prime Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu said during the opening ceremony.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel’s coat was stolen twice during his visit to Romania with President Michel Suleiman earlier this week, reported the daily Ad Diyar on Sunday.

The first theft took place during a dinner thrown in Suleiman’s honor by his Romanian counterpart Traian Basescu.

President Michel Suleiman is expected to travel to Qatar on Sunday to attend the International Conference on Telecommunications.

Official sources told the daily An Nahar in remarks published on Sunday that the president may hold talks with Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani during his visit.

President Michel Suleiman stressed on Wednesday that the Lebanese economy was able to withstand the world financial crisis as the region suffered from a political unrest.

He said during the opening of the businessmen forum in Romania that Lebanon’s economy had attracted investments that mounted to $4 billion.

President Michel Suleiman said Tuesday that Lebanon will exert efforts to restore Syria’s membership in the Arab League whose decisions are respected by Beirut no matter what its stance is.

“No matter what Lebanon’s stance is at Arab League summits, it commits itself to its decisions,” Suleiman said at a joint press conference with his Romanian counterpart Traian Basescu in Bucharest.

President Michel Suleiman criticized on Saturday time wasted over disputes among political leaders, which he said is hindering the proper functioning of the state.

He said: “The political mentality which is based on sectarian distribution of power is impeding the rise of the state.”