February 27, 2019

Laura Codruta Kovesi gets most of the votes in LIBE commitee, Public Ministry assessment meeting

Newsroom, 27.02.2019, 13:49

European Prosecutor — The former chief of the National Anticorruption Directorate in Romania, Laura Codruta Kovesi, received most of the votes, 26, in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs – LIBE in the EP, as she is running for the position of chief prosecutor of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. Coming next are the French Jean-Francois Bohnert with 22 votes and the German Andres Ritter with one vote. The vote followed Tuesday’s hearings in the joint Civil Liberties and Budgetary Control committees of the three candidates. Laura Codruta Kovesi had obtained most of the votes also in the Committee on Budgetary Control – CONT. The future chief prosecutor of the European Prosecutor’s Office will be appointed jointly by the EP and the Council of the EU. The European Prosecutor’s Office will be an independent and decentralized prosecution office of the European Union with competence for investigating, prosecuting and bringing to justice crimes against the EU budget, such as fraud, corruption or cross-border VAT fraud. It is to start its activity by the end of 2020.

Justice – In 2018 big pressure was exerted on the Romanian justice system and moves to change the justice laws and the criminal codes continued, said Wednesday Romania’s prosecutor general Augustin Lazar at the Public Ministry assessment meeting. He added that last year politicians did their best and managed to dismiss the chief prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate. The prosecutor general underlined in his speech that the proposals of the General Prosecutors’ Office representatives were ignored when legislative amendments were passed. According to Lazar, some of the amendments run counter to Romania’s international obligations and the European bodies confirmed the appropriateness of the Public Ministry’s stand on the matter. Prosecutors had to deal with 1.7 million files in 2018 of which they solved more than 500 thousand. Attending the assessment meeting, the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said that Romanians wanted to have a country without corruption. The interference of the political factor in the judiciary has become more visible, he added. Today’s meeting is taking place in the context in which hundreds of magistrates from across Romania are protesting against the new modifications brought to the justice laws through an emergency decree.

Chisinau — The ACUM bloc will not enter a coalition in the future Moldovan Parliament either with the Democratic Party or with the Socialist Party, said Maia Sandu, the president of the Party of Action and Solidarity. She accused fraud during the election, claiming that ACUM was deprived of its votes both on the election day and ahead of the election campaign through the smear campaign and fake news launched against the pro-European opposition in Moldova. The results of Sunday’s parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova show that the Socialists’ Party got 35 MP seats in Parliament and the Democratic Party 30 seats.

Hanoi — The American President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are meeting today in Hanoi, Vietnam. Their second meeting will take place on Thursday. The two had previously met once in Singapore last year. The principle agreement signed on that occasion on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was not followed by any notable results, and the US insisted that sanctions against North Korea should remain in force.

Finance — The banks’ representatives from Romania are meeting today with the finance minister Eugen Teodorovici to discuss the emergency decree no. 114 related to certain fiscal measures. The decree is contested both by the opposition and the business environment and caused discontent to banks as it introduces a tax on bank assets. The deadline for the tacit approval of the emergency decree no.114 in the Senate is March 1, after which it will be forwarded to the Chamber of Deputies, a decision-making body on the matter. (translation by L. Simion)