Council of Europe Slates Romania's Corruption Record

The Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption, GRECO, has criticised Romania's parliament in a report for adopting justice legislation without a proper consultation process and despite protests.

The fourth evaluation report on the implementation of the CoE's recommendations for corruption prevention in respect of members of parliament, judges and prosecutors, issued on Thursday, said Romania had only fulfilled two of the 13 requirements of the European anti-corruption monitor.

The document noted that both the Romanian government and parliament had expedited the adoption of controversial justice legislation despite civil society opposition and without allowing a proper consultation process.

The rapporteurs, from Norway and Turkey, stressed that Romania's parliament, which was supposed to adopt better anti-corruption laws, seemed to head in the opposite direction, even discussing amnesties for corruption-linked offences.

The GRECO report also said Romania did not make the necessary efforts to improve the activity of the National Integrity Agency, which is tasked to oversee the wealth and interest declarations of MPs, condemning failures to impose sanctions on legislators when they should have been imposed.

The report noted only one positive development - the adoption of a code of conduct for MPs in October 2017, which establishes new rules in terms of gifts received by legislators and managing conflict of interest.

However, the report notes, the new regulations are vague and their implementation is inconsistent.

The report comes the week after Romania's Social Democrat-dominated parliament amended a set of three justice laws, despite fierce opposition from civil society and anti-corruption protests that deemed...