THE PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION, JOSE MANUEL BARROSO: "The political rivalry does not justify the violation of democratic principles"

Romania has registered some improvements in the area of justice, but the extraordinary events which happened over the last three weeks have shaken the faith of the European Union (EU), the president of the European Commission (EC), Jose Manuel Barroso said yesterday (EC), upon the presentation of the reports for the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification (MCV) for Romania and Bulgaria.

He added: "Political rivalry does not justify the violation of democratic principles, and the competences of the Constitutional Court may not be changed overnight".

Jose Manuel Barroso praises the commitments recently made in writing by prime minister Victor Ponta, but he also stresses that their implementation will be monitored closely and a new report will be presented at the end of this year.

"The quick and rigorous implementation of the recommendations included in the MCV will contribute to the guarantee of a stable economic environment, credible and favorable for investments, as well as reassure the financial markets", the European leader noted.

• The European Commission: "A different outcome would have been possible without the recent events"

According to the European Commission, the MCV report represents both an assessment of the last five years, acknowledging the progress which was made, but also a synopsis of the recent violations of the rule of the law, and suggested steps which our country should urgently take.

The renewal of the legislative base, the National Anticorruption Department (DNA) and ANI (The National Integrity Agency) and the decisions of the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ICCJ), concerning high level corruption cases, have represented important steps in the process for the modernization of the judicial system, but the events of the last three weeks, have raised question marks over this progress, said Mark Gray, the spokesperson of the Commission, and he emphasized that this process is no longer considered durable and irreversible.

"A different outcome would have been possible without the recent events, but we are where we are at the moment", the EU official responded, when asked whether a different outcome would have been possible had the aforementioned events not happened.

In the context of the recent violations of the rule of the law and of the independence of the judicial system, a new report published by the MCV will be passed, before the end of this year, in order to assess whether the concerns of the European Commission have been answered and whether the democratic balance has been reestablished, the officials of the Commission have said.

The following steps will be set according to the developments in Romania, meaning that the return to the previous program after this report is not certain.

The connection of the MCV report with the accession of the MCV report with the accession to the Schengen space is not a direct one, but under the current situation, the member states will also look at what it says, the same European official said.

From a technical point of view, Romania has concluded the assessments for the accession to the Schengen area. From a political point of view, the decision belongs to the Council, which, by exerting the political vote, is the only instance which has the power to decide whether to approve or to postpone the accession schedule.

The objections which some member states may have against Romania or Bulgaria could be of any nature, but they are even harder to challenge when they appear in official reports of the European Commission.