Country Report – Expected and Unavoidable Conclusions

Transparency International Romania takes duly notice of the state of complacency that Romania has consistently shown towards the stream of negative reports coming from the European Union without taking a substantive stance to improve the situation. Authorities in Bucharest, regardless of their political affiliation, ignore all the criticism that was given to Romania during the years of monitoring, as though knowing that “in spite of the negative tone of the Report, the safeguard clause would not be activated.”

The current situation generated by the perpetual provisional state of the fight against corruption has lead to an excessive weakening of all the integrity pillars, which in turn has affected the credibility of reforms undertaken in Romania. The situation is even more worrisome as the new integrity pillars created under the threat of the safeguard clause are already proving their inefficiency.

All these faults weaken Romania’s competitiveness on the market of EU funds, which could help overcome some of the effects of the financial crisis and sustain the regularization efforts and the fulfilment of its obligations.

In this context, TI-Romania believes that maintaining the verification and cooperation mechanism is justified due to Romania’s poor monitoring results but not sufficient to reduce the vulnerabilities which are affecting the national integrity system so long as it is not bolstered by tangible actions.

Therefore, Transparency International Romania asks the European Commission and authorities in Bucharest to establish a mechanism that will evaluate the impact of the adopted measures and the results obtained over time so that reports in the future will focus more on the real progress or regress achieved by the country and less so on the formal fulfilment of its obligations.

Transparency International Romania recommends to all Romanian decision-makers to tackle the criticisms of the Report with utmost responsibility and to give priority to the national interest by establishing at once concrete measures to correct them. Consistent to its mission, TI-Romania has devised since December 2008 a series of recommendations meant to ensure the minimal required standards for good governance which might be are the basis for a coherent public policy. Only by taking such appropriate measures can Romania prove that the rule of law and the fight against corruption are national priorities, independent of international monitoring.

Victor Alistar
Executive Director