The First Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, has called on Romania to continue with its efforts to tackle corruption, two days after Jean-Claude Junker made a similar appeal. He encouraged the country to stick to its goals just when it was “a few metres away from the finishing line” and described the fight against institutionalised corruption as a “tough marathon”.
Although the government has withdrawn its decree on the decriminalisation of corruption under pressure from street protests, the European official reminded the country that it had made “extraordinary progress” over the past ten years and that this trajectory should not be transformed into a U-turn, which would be “a massive failure with regard to everything and that has been achieved over the past few years”. The First Vice President urged the Romanian government to pursue this work and said that “this is what the Romanian people deserve”.
Commissioner for Regional Policy cancels visit to Romania
The Romanian Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Creţu, has cancelled her visit to her country of origin, planned for 2-3 February, due to health problems, explained the European Commission. According to one European source, however, the real reason may be completely different. The corruption scandal in which the social democratic government is mixed up (the political family of the Romanian Commissioner) may have encouraged this cancellation. We have been informed that the Commissioner’s visit could have been used by the Romanian government as a blank cheque to legitimise its own action. The visit was expected to last the number of days and has been postponed until a date not yet known. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic and Pascal Hansens)