PNL's Orban says PSD shows desire to maintain CVM,further fraud EU funds,block accession to Schengen

Chairman of the National Liberal Party (PNL) Ludovic Orban believes that, in the context of the vote in the European Parliament regarding the rule of law mechanism, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) shows that it wants to maintain the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) and further fraud the EU funds, as well as block the accession to Schengen.

"The vote 'against' cast on Thursday in the European Parliament by the PSD and ALDE [the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats] MEPs regrading the mechanism on the functioning of the rule of law proves, without any shred of a doubt, the anti-European agenda of this coalition, which is obsessively concerned with protecting felons and neglects the interest of other citizens of Romania, in a criminal manner. The PSD-ALDE stance shows the prospects that this group has, namely to continue the toxic assault against the independence of Justice, to compromise the rule of law and the fight against corruption. The justification of the vote proves that the PSD-ALDE intends to maintain the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism, which cannot be lifted except by meeting the recommendations of the European Commission, to compromise the chance to join the Schengen Area or the Eurozone and completely isolate Romania from the other member states of the European Union. Altogether, contrary to those claimed in a hypocritical manner by Prime Minister Dancila, even in the plenary sitting of the European Parliament, the PSD-ALDE proposes Romanians an anti-European agenda, governed by Liviu Dragnea's interest, who, in addition, is investigated in connection to a fraud of EU funding," Orban stated in a release sent to AGERPRES on Friday.

He argues that the vote in the EP shows the total isolation of the PSD-ALDE from their own European political families, mentioning that 85 percent of the S&D [the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats] group, where the PSD is a member, voted in favour of the rule of law mechanism, and 96 percent the European ALDE group voted in the same manner.

"We must mention that yesterday's vote in the European Parliament was one for the mandate, regarding the negotiation of this mechanism with the European Commission and the Council of the EU, insisting that, in case of a suspension of EU funds, the final beneficiaries shouldn't be affected - namely the obligation of the respective country to compensate the funding for projects from the national budget - and the criteria for implementing this mechanism should be clearly defined. We warn the Government not to make the mistake of blocking or delaying the European law-making process in the next step, namely the establishment of the standpoint of the EU Council through the General Affairs Council. Such a gesture will have extremely serious consequences on Romania's image and it will not be free of reactions!," Orban showed.

He mentioned that the standpoint of the PNL to vote in favour of the mandate enforcing the implementation of the mechanism regarding the rule of law is based on the assumed objective to lift the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism, until the recommendations of the European Commission are met, to observe and strengthen the rule of law, the independence of Justice and the fight against corruption, namely to complete the commitments that Romania took on when joining the EU.

"A National Liberal Party takeover of the government will lead to the implementation with celerity of the recommendations of the Venice Commission, of those included in the CVM Report and in the European Parliament Resolution on 13 November 2018 in respect to the Justice Laws, the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, as well as to the remediation of the institutional imbalances, generated by the PSD-ALDE," the PNL Chairman added. AGERPRES (RO - author: Florentina Peia, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Rodica State, editor: Adina Panaitescu)