European Parliament expresses deep concern over rule of law in Romania in draft resolution

The European Parliament is deeply concerned by the changes brought to Romania’s judicial and criminal legislation, which could structurally undermine the independence of the judiciary and the country’s capacity to efficiently fight against corruption, according to the EP’s draft resolution on Romania’s rule of law.

The EP also criticizes the violent and disproportional intervention of law enforcement during the August 10 protest in Bucharest.

The European legislative body urges Romanian authorities to introduce guarantees for a transparent and legal basis for any institutional cooperation and in order to avoid any interference that goes beyond the system of checks and balances, and also requests a strengthening of parliamentary control over intelligence services.

The European Parliament’s other recommendations and warnings for Romanian authorities:

Counter any measures that would decriminalize corruption in the workplace and apply the national anticorruption strategy;
Reconsider legislation for the financing, structure and operation of NGOs as it could have an intimidating effect on civil society and contradict the principle of free association and right to private life; align the legislation with the EU’s framework;
Deep concern over the political restrictions on the freedom of mass-media and the law proposals that sanction the denigration of Romania abroad and reintroducing defamation in the criminal code;
Romania’s Parliament and government should fully apply all the recommendations made by the European Commission, GRECO and the Venice Commission and refrain from any reform that would endanger the rule of law, including the independence of the judiciary;
Continue to engage civil society and approach the above issues in a transparent and all-encompassing process; request a proactive evaluation from the Venice Commission for all legislative measures before they are passed into law;
Cooperate with the European Commission based on the principle of loyal collaboration;
Expresses regret over the fact that the Commission decided not to publish the EU anticorruption report in 2017 and urges the Commission to urgently restart its annual anticorruption monitoring in all member states; invites the EC to develop a system of strict indicators and easy to apply criteria to measure the level of corruption in member states and evaluate their anticorruption policies;
Demands a periodic, systematic and objective process of monitoring and dialogue that involves all the member states, in order to protect the EU’s values in terms of democracy, fundamental rights and rule of law, involving the Council, the Commission and the Parliament; reiterates the fact that this mechanism should include a yearly report with specific recommendations for each country.
Demands that the European Commission, as a guardian of the treaties, monitor the actions taken as a result of recommendations and continue to offer full support for Romania to find appropriate solutions.