Accessibility links

Breaking News

EU Welcomes Romania's Repeal of Graft Decree, Offers Help for Jails


Protesters display the Romanian national flag colors during a demonstration in front of the government building in Bucharest, Romania, Feb. 12, 2017.
Protesters display the Romanian national flag colors during a demonstration in front of the government building in Bucharest, Romania, Feb. 12, 2017.

The European Commission welcomed on Thursday as a “very good step” the decision of the Romanian government to repeal a decree that would have decriminalized graft, and offered Bucharest assistance and funds to improve the country's prisons.

The one-month-old cabinet of Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu enraged voters when it quietly approved emergency decree two weeks ago that would have decriminalized several corruption offenses, prompting the largest display of popular anger since the fall of communism in 1989.

Romania's Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu leaves a meeting at the parliament in Bucharest, Feb. 6, 2017.
Romania's Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu leaves a meeting at the parliament in Bucharest, Feb. 6, 2017.

Warning to Romania

After the protests, the decree was repealed and its main architect, Justice Minister Florin Iordache, resigned.

“I really welcome the fact that the emergency order has been repealed. It is a very good step,” the European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans told a news conference in Brussels after a meeting with Grindeanu.

Timmermans, who had warned Romania not to backtrack in the fight against corruption after the graft decree was approved, urged the country to continue tackling graft and to involve the civil society in the reform of its corruption laws.

He also offered Romania EU assistance to improve the prison system, saying EU funds could be used for that purpose. The Social Democrat-led government had argued that the decriminalization of some graft offenses would have reduced overcrowding in the country's jails.

New minister could be outsider

Speaking at the same news conference, Grindeanu committed to new reforms and said he will work to make sure the EU's monitoring of Romania's judicial sector and anti-graft legislation would no longer be needed by 2019, when the country takes over the EU presidency for the first time since it joined the bloc in 2007.

Grindeanu also said he will propose next week a new justice minister, who is likely to be picked from “outside the political sphere,” he told journalists.

  • 16x9 Image

    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

XS
SM
MD
LG