In a report published today, the Council of Europe anti-corruption body (GRECO) expresses concern about the use of emergency procedures to amend legislation in Romania instead of using proper parliamentary process.
GRECO has followed closely recent developments in Romania related to the amendments (subsequently withdrawn) to its criminal legislation in connection with Romania’s obligations as a party to the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption. GRECO considers that such far-reaching initiatives should be thoroughly examined and scrutinised by Parliament. It also alerts the authorities to the need to be mindful of the country’s commitments regarding incriminations against corruption and of the relevant GRECO recommendations in any future legislative initiatives.
The report evaluates progress made by Romania in implementing GRECO´s previous recommendations on the criminalisation of corruption and the transparency of political funding. GRECO concludes that Romania has so far implemented satisfactorily fifteen of the twenty recommendations it issued in the first evaluation report on these topics adopted in 2010. Two recommendations remain not implemented and three recommendations have been partly implemented.
