Senate's Dragu: Dismantling of SIIJ and justice laws, good arguments for lifting of CVM

Senate President Anca Dragu considers that Romania has taken the necessary steps to eliminating the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) this year, a fact also acknowledged by the Vice President of the European Commission, Vera Jourova. "I was in this video conference with Vera Jourova, vice-president of the European Commission, and she said that Romania could get rid of this CVM. I think the dismantling of the SIIJ [the Section for the Investigation of Judicial Crimes] is a very good argument, but also the justice laws that the Ministry of Justice has already finalized. These are very good arguments through which Romania shows that it is very serious as regards the recommendations that came in the CVM and that we take the independence of the judiciary seriously," Anca Dragu told, on Tuesday, private radio broadcaster Digi FM. She added that Renew Europe, the group to which Save Romania Union - Party of Liberty, Unity and Solidarity (USR PLUS) Alliance belongs, maintains that the new evaluation mechanism of the rule of law must be "very intensively" used in all European states. "Ms. Jourova's announcement that Romania could get rid of the CVM this year is a historic fact. In fact, Renew Europe, the group USR PLUS is part of, maintains that the new evaluation mechanism of the rule of law will be used very intensively in all the European states and it must be somehow tied to this money that comes from the EU. The European Union does not have to be an ATM from which everyone withdraws money whenever they want, without any responsibility," said Dragu. In her opinion, for a good result regarding the lifting of the CVM, Romania must send teams capable of presenting the measures taken "in a coherent manner", to the discussions with the European officials. "I think we need to present these measures in a coherent way, we need to go with serious and courageous teams to the discussions with the EU. We have already repealed in Parliament, we have rejected all these changes that have been made to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code under the Dragnea governing. This is another argument that certainly weighs heavily in the Commission's decision to lift the CVM. We have shown that what we have promised regarding the protection of justice we are actually doing," concluded the President of the Upper House of Parliament.AGERPRES(RO - author: Sorinel Penes, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Maria Voican)