Brussels, 17/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission said on Tuesday 17 July that it had received the written commitments of Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta the previous day. Ponta was last week visiting Brussels and had been called upon to answer to a number of concerns. A list of 11 points of difficulty had been submitted to Ponta, who replied “in detail” the spokesman Frederic Vincent said, without giving any clarification at this point whether Ponta's replies fully answered Brussels' expectations. The prime minister and President of the Commission José Manuel Barroso spoke to each other again on the telephone on Monday evening, Vincent said.
The events of recent weeks and Bucharest's way of answering the 11 points raised by the Commission will certainly be integrated in the report which will be published this Wednesday 18 July on the state of democracy in Romania and Bulgaria, the spokesman said. The Romanian report nonetheless remains open to the political discussion that the commissioners will have on Wednesday morning. Last Thursday, Commissioner Viviane Reding judged that the Commission should advocate the continued surveillance of the two countries, operated in the context of the cooperation and verification mechanism (CVM) which, since 2007, has been assessing the state of judicial reforms and progress in the fight against corruption. The membership of these two countries to the Schengen area is furthermore partly conditional upon these reports.
On Monday evening the acting president of Romania, Crin Antonescu, who replaces Traian Basescu (suspended from his position while awaiting the referendum of 29 July), decided nevertheless to make a gesture of good will to Brussels. The president therefore enacted a law on the outlines of this referendum - a law which the Commission had judged crucial, AFP reports.
The acting president in fact validated a decision of the Romanian Constitutional Court, given last Tuesday, which prescribed a threshold of 50% (plus one voice) minimum participation for this vote to be valid. The centre-Left coalition in power, Ponta's Social Liberal Union (USL), had until then refused to state clearly whether or not this arrangement would be applied for the vote on 29 July. Antonescu made it known, however, that he had personal reservations with regard to this participation threshold and he criticised a campaign of “disinformation” against Romania.
On Wednesday 18 July, the Romanian parliament was also due to meet in an extraordinary session to discuss the two emergency decrees taken by the Ponta government. The decrees are criticised by the Commission - one limiting the powers of the Constitutional Court and the other relating to the referendum on 29 July. (SP/transl.fl)