Although Romania stepped up efforts to fight corruption over the past years, “the irreversibility of progress in the fight against corruption was recently put at risk,” EC said.
“Romania has a solid anti-corruption legal framework and the track record of the judicial institutions fighting corruption has been strong. (…) However, in an emergency procedure on 31 January 2017, the Government introduced amendments to the Criminal Code, affecting the fight against corruption,” EC said.
Such initiatives risk challenging the progress already made over the past 10 years in this field, according to EC.
Late January, the Romanian government passed the amendments to the Criminal Code for the partial decriminalization of official misconduct. The decree would have decriminalized abuse of office offences involving sums of less than RON200,000 (EUR45,000).
On February 5, the government repealed the decree, following five consecutive days of street protests in Bucharest and other major cities.