Ambassador Ramis: French Foreign Minister's Bucharest meeting with anticorruption head Kovesi wasn't secret

French ambassador to Romania Michele Ramis said on Friday in Constanta that French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian's meeting at the embassy's Bucharest premises with Chief Prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) Laura Codruta Kovesi had not been kept under the cloak of secrecy.

What I would like to tell you is that this wasn't a secret meeting, as it had been announced by the spokesperson of the Foreign Minister ahead of the latter's arrival in Romania, so it was on the public agenda. It is customary for the minister to see various interlocutors during the visit and this meeting did take place, but I cannot tell you more - what its purpose was and what was discussed. This meeting was in a string of other institutional meetings, but it was made public, as the minister's agenda - this meeting included - had been publicly announced before his arrival, ambassador Ramis said.

The diplomat's statement comes just days after Social Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea obliquely referenced early this week the meeting saying: "I did not participate in the secret meeting between the [French] Foreign Affairs Minister and the DNA head - I assume it is diplomatically common for such meetings between a Foreign Affairs minister and a prosecutor in Romania to take place." AGERPRES (RO - author: Dan Mihaescu, editor: Antonia Nita; EN - author/editor: Simona Klodnischi)