The European Union sought on Tuesday to increase pressure on Romania to freeze disputed judicial reforms and prevent any move away from democratic values as Bucharest prepares to take over the bloc’s rotating presidency.
The EU’s deputy chief executive, Mr Olli Ruutu, said the proposed changes to the judicial system and criminal code made by the ruling Social Democrats were wrong-headed and signaled a reversal of a decade of democratic and market reforms.
The European Parliament also passed a non-binding resolution urging a greater fight against corruption, condemning police brutality during anti-graft protests and demanding an end to what it called the erosion of the rule of law.
“The developments over the last 12 months sadly have called into question and sometimes even reversed the progress made over the last 10 years,” Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans told a news conference in Strasbourg.
“We need to stand firm and support the Romanian population,” he said, setting out eight areas where Bucharest had to act quickly, including on press freedoms.
The Commission’s concerns stem from a series of legal and personnel changes made by the Social Democrats in the two years since they took power that are seen as threats to judicial independence that could intensify a creep away from democratic values in some of the EU’s eastern member states.
Transparency International ranks Romania as one of the EU’s most corrupt states and Brussels has been keeping its justice system under special monitoring since its 2007 entry.
The EU, which is already considering sanctions against Poland and Hungary for weakening the rule of law, is concerned that Romania is following suit.
While Timmermans stressed that unlike in Hungary or Poland, the Commission was not seeking to penalise Bucharest, Romania’s turn as EU president puts the country in the spotlight for six months from January 2019.
“Bucharest should use the opportunity of its presidency to lead on good governance and start by implementing reforms that strengthen the rule of law at home,” said Ska Keller, a German EU lawmaker who leads the Greens in the parliament.
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