Brussels, 05/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 5 July, Olivier Bailly, spokesman for the European Commission, indicated that the Commission would be following the political situation in Romania very closely. An impeachment procedure has been launched by Victor Ponta's centre-left coalition against President Traian Basescu. The Commission will also be responding to the forthcoming report on the Cooperation and Verification Instrument (CVM), which is supposed to assess the progress made by Romania and Bulgaria with regard to legal questions in these countries. Bailly said that this would be published sometime this month. The CVM report will also have to serve as the basis underpinning a decision made by ministers for home affairs on the question of Schengen enlargement.
On Wednesday 4 July, representatives from the Social Liberal Union (USL) accused the president of having “seriously infringed the constitution”, according to a report by AFP. They intended to vote on this impeachment this coming Friday. Coalition representatives believe that this impeachment will enable them to “put a stop to the blockage”, which they believe is caused by Basescu, who has carried out action that is “likely to endanger the operational functioning of state institutions” by allocating government prerogatives to himself and by supporting austerity measures that have “impoverished the population”, according to AFP. Basescu has firmly denied this.
On 3 July, Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding expressed concern about these domestic political developments and on Thursday 5 July the French minister for home affairs, Bernard Valero, called on the Romanian government to “respect democratic values and the rule of law” as well as “the balance of power in their institutions”, explained Valero's spokesman. (SP/transl.fl)