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EU FOCUS: Romania Shirks Anti-Graft Law

16 02 2006  Failure to adopt key law against corruption may hurt Romania's EU accession plans.

By Marian Chiriac in Bucharest (Balkan Insight, 16 Feb 06)

Romania's chances of joining the European Union in 2007 were dealt a fresh blow last week, as parliament threw out a key piece of anti-corruption legislation.

The failure to tackle an endemic culture of graft has been singled out frequently as the most likely cause of a delay in obtaining membership.

The proposed law would have empowered the country's special Anti-Corruption Prosecutors Office, to investigate senior politicians and judges.

But the main opposition party, the Social Democrats, PSD, rejected the bill in parliament's upper chamber, the Senate.

The bill took effect last September as an emergency decree but needs parliamentary approval to become permanent.

"In spite of much rhetoric about the need to focus on EU accession as the goal, the Senate vote shows that for most politicians, a far more important priority is to protect their privileges and remain beyond the reach of the law," said Mark Percival of Romanian Think Tank, a local non-governmental organisation.

"It is irrelevant to the majority of the political class that the establishment of an independent judiciary, which by definition must have the power to act against politicians, is a vital [EU] entry criterion," Percival added.

The European Commission office in Romania made clear its disappointment and its readiness to up pressure on Bucharest with the threat of delays to accession.

"We trust Romania will vigorously pursue the fight against corruption at the highest level, otherwise it risks postponing its EU accession," the EC spokesperson, Angela Filote, said.

"We will make our full analysis of the results in our upcoming report on May 16," she added.

The May report will be the EC's last on Romania before member countries vote later this year on whether to allow Romania to join the EU on January 1, 2007.

Romania had been expected to enter the EU together with neighbouring Bulgaria but a safeguard clause in their treaties of accession allows postponement by one year if either fails to meet the conditions.

The corruption issue will be a key factor in any ruling over whether to activate the clause, and the Romanian government fears that if the new law does not pass, it will be unable to persuade Brussels that it takes the fight against corruption seriously.

The justice minister, Monica Macovei, criticised the Senate's decision as damaging to the national interest. "The forthcoming EU report will consider the fight against corruption as a vital element of Romania's political will to meet all of its commitments to join the EU," she said.

The government, led by the centrist Calin Tarcieanu since December 2004, has long promised to crack down on the corruption that has always been part of Romania's political culture, but which mushroomed in the chaotic period following the fall of communism.

Last year the Anti-Corruption Prosecutors Office brought charges of corruption, including bribery and embezzlement, against 451 people, securing 170 convictions, according to the justice ministry.

But no culprits were at a high level. At the start of this year, however, prosecutors opened proceedings against three prominent politicians, including a former prime minister.

Adrian Nastase, who headed the government from 2000 to 2004 and is now speaker of the lower house of parliament, was charged with corruption and misuse of office.

He said the charges were part of a vendetta pursued by the ruling centrists. "This has all the markings of a public lynching," he said. "You would have to be sick in the head to accuse a former prime minister of taking bribes… without having any backing."

The case concerns Nastase's purchase of a piece of land in Bucharest from a former PSD deputy. Prosecutors investigated the case in 2004, while Nastase was prime minister, without pursuing it. But the case was reopened after the 2004 elections changed the government.

Another PSD leader, Dan Ioan Popescu, is under investigation over assets he was forced to declare under recent transparency laws. According to anti-corruption lawyers, he failed to prove the origins of assets worth 1.25 million euro.

Only a few days after the Popescu case, the deputy prime minister, George Copos, a right-wing businessman with a fortune estimated at 240 million euro, was placed under investigation on suspicion of fraud and tax evasion involving 1 million euro.

Popescu told Balkan Insight that his case is "100 percent political". Copos - who is a member of the Conservative Party, itself a junior member of the ruling coalition - also insisted that he is innocent and trusts that justice will prove this.

"Now is the time to take urgent, immediate and substantial action in the fight against corruption, and at the highest-level," said Cristian Parvulescu, a political analyst.

He said Romania had made some progress in the field of petty corruption but had done too little against high-level officials.

Parvalescu added that Romania needed to take action on this front for the benefit of the country and not only in response to external threats and blackmail.

"An independent and accountable justice system should be established first and foremost for the benefit of Romanian citizens, not only for the sake of Brussels," he concluded.

Marian Chiriac is BIRN's Romania country director. Balkan Insight is BIRN's internet publication.