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| The Week in Review: Sept. 17-23 |
| (2012-09-15) |
| Last updated: 2012-11-09 13:12 EET |
The political situation in Romania draws European institutions’ attention.
With its flames quenched three weeks ago, when the Constitutional Court invalidated the referendum on the impeachment of Romanian president Traian Basescu, the political crisis in Romania is still triggering international reactions. The debate held in the European Parliament and the visit paid to Bucharest by a Venice Commission delegation is proof of the growing interest in the conflict between the center-left ruling alliance in Romania, the Social Liberal Union, on the one hand, and the country’s president, Traian Basescu, and his supporters, the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, on the other. In the Strasbourg legislative, socialist and liberal MEPs blamed the European Commission for having unjustifiably criticized the Social Liberal Union, and said president Basescu had instated a totalitarian regime. In turn, European Commission vice-president Viviane Reding and MEPs members of the Group of European People’s party of which the Liberal Democratic Party is a member, maintained their accusations against the Social Liberal Union, whose actions, they said, infringed upon the principles of the rule of law. In another move, the fact-finding visit paid to Bucharest by the representatives of the Venice Commission didn’t go unnoticed. The delegation met the head of state, the Prime Minister and representatives of the parliamentary parties. The Venice Commission, which is the Council of Europe’s Advisory Body, will next week present its conclusions regarding the political dispute in Bucharest. The conflict between the power and the opposition in Romania, which also involved several state institutions, such as Parliament, the Constitutional Court and the Ombudsman, seasoned with emergency ordinances and controversial laws, gained momentum with the referendum on the impeachment of president Basescu. 46% of the Romanian voters went to the polls in late July, but that was not enough for the referendum to be validated, as the prerequisite was a turnover of at least 50%. Of those who cast their vote, 87%, which means around 7.5 million people, voted for the impeachment of Traian Basescu.
The European Commission presents its stand with regard to Romania’s Schengen accession.
Romania and Bulgaria meet the technical criteria for their joining the Schengen agreement, the European Commission President, Jose Manule Barosso, said in his State of the European Union speech in the European Parliament. Still, he also said the Commission could take action when certain decisions made by the member states question the principles of the rule of law, an allusion to the recent developments in Bucharest. The statements were made against the background of the announcement made by the Cypriote presidency of the EU that the meeting of the EU Interior Ministers, which should have been held over 19th –20th of September, was postponed. The Justice and Home Affairs Council would have been the place for a decision to be made regarding the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to Schengen. Initially scheduled for March 2011, the accession has been postponed several times. Both Bucharest and Sofia have been blamed for failing to make enough progress in reforming the judiciary and fighting organized crime.
The Roma issue is back in the focus.
A sensitive issue on the Romanian – French bilateral agenda for years now, the situation of the Romanian born Roma who migrate to France is one of the priorities of the recently instated socialist government in Paris. Proof of that is the visit paid to Bucharest by the French Interior and European Affairs Ministers, Manuel Valls and Bernard Cazeneuve. Broadly speaking, France has accused Romania of having not made enough for the social integration of the Roma people. Things will change, the Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta promised at the meeting he head with the two French officials.
Victor Ponta: “This government is determined to pass from good intentions to concrete action. The true solution to this issue will only come when Roma children have started going to school and benefiting from education, and when the members of the Roma community have got jobs here, in Romania”.
Romania is again criticized for failing to absorb enough European money.
The President of Lithuania, Mrs. Dalia Grybauskaite, recently on a visit to Bucharest, has resumed reproaches regarding Romania’s unsatisfactory results in absorbing European funds. The Lithuanian official has recalled that Romania ranks last among the EU countries in using European funds. Such reproaches have not been singular, as the very European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barosso, has also criticized Romania for that. Criticism has been assumed by the Romanian authorities in the past years. Things couldn’t have been different, as Romania has only managed to absorb 10% of the 20 billion Euros it is entitled to benefit from in the 2007-2013 period.
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