Ensuring Presidency of EU Council, ambitious mission for Romania, Matthew Boyse appreciates

Romania's ensuring the 6-month Presidency of the Council of the European Union is an ambitious task, full of challenges as it takes place in a particularly difficult period, marked by Brexit, the elections to the European Parliament and the completion of the EU's multi-annual budget (2021-2027), appreciated on Tuesday, Matthew Boyse, the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

The US diplomat, on a tour of several Central and Eastern European states in the EU, made these comments in a meeting with a group of Romanian journalists.

He wished Romania good luck for the time it will be at the head of the Council of the European Union (January 1 - June 30, 2019).

On the other hand, Boyse said that the USA are carefully following the developments in Romania on the observance of the rule of law and expects our country to continue on the right path, but refused to make an actual comment about the possible emergency ordinance regarding the transposition of the amendments to the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Codes that were declared constitutional.

When it chose to join the European Union and NATO, Romania subscribed to some principles. (...) We are in constant dialogue with the Romanian government, the US diplomat said.

Prime Minister Viorica Dancila announced on Monday that the approval of an ordinance amending the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code in the sense of adopting those articles in the Codes which have been declared constitutional was discussed and decided within the Social Democratic Party (PSD)'s National Executive Committee.

In his turn, Justice Minister Tudorel Toader declared, after participate in the meeting of PSD's leadership, that the Ministry of Justice will analyse to see to what extent an emergency ordinance can be adopted for the transposition of the constitutional articles in the Criminal Codes, highlighting that the solutions validated by the Constitutional Court can become part of the "active fund of the criminal legislation." AGERPRES (RO - author: Tudor Martalogu editor: Sorin Popescu EN - author: Catalin Cristian Trandafir, editor: Simona Iacob)