Romania's President Traian Basescu and Daniel Morar (Chief Prosecutor of the Anti-Graft Authority)Today, Daniel Morar, chief of the National Anti-corruption Department (DNA), provided activity report in open session attended by President Traian Basescu, PM Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, Minister of Justice Monica Macovei, and General Prosecutor Ilie Botos.
All representatives of the state powers showed confidence that once the anti-corruption bill be sent back in the parliament, the MPs will not fail again in passing the law. Moreover, President Basescu said he came to this meeting just because the Senate rejected the bill, on Wednesday, and put the anti-corruption authority under political pressure.
Basescu expressly assured the prosecutors that the debate over the subject came to a positive solution as talks he held together with all parliamentary parties, at the Presidential Palace, resulted into shared vision – i.e. general support for the DNA and its further functioning.
President Basescu added that, next Monday, he will meet again all political party leaders in order to produce an agreed upon text of the bill.
The head of the state underlined that the would-be changes in the bill will address some organizational details while the DNA functionalities will remain unchanged.
President Basescu also intended to encourage the anti-corruption prosecutors in acting accordingly to their task, even if they are dealing with powerful high ranked politicians. The rule of law must prevail, Basescu concluded.
One should remember that, this Wednesday, the senators from in opposition (i.e. Social-Democrats) managed to reject an anti-corruption bill, while one of their very leaders (i.e. former PM Adrian Nastase) was just indicted for corruption by DNA.
On Thursday, the EU delegation in Bucharest and the U.S. Embassy both released press statements to support the Govt’s reforms in fighting top-level corruption. Moreover, the Socialist group in the European Parliament displayed doubts regarding the true reason behind the Romanian SocDems’ rejection vote.
While understanding that they might loose supporters because of EU’s swift and sharp criticism, Social-Democrats immediately tried to find excuses for their vote. Excuses turned to be inconsistent because the SocDems had to lower their voice and, today, their leaders eventually showed little opposition towards President Basescu asking them to publicly support the anti-corruption bill – which they did in prime time.
Romania Report
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