Controversy over dignitaries facing corruption investigations

A new political and legal controversy dominates public debates in Bucharest.

Bogdan Matei, 27.09.2017, 13:26

A criminal investigation as part of a
corruption case was launched last Friday against Romania’s Deputy Prime
Minister and Minister of Regional Development Sevil Shhaideh and the Minister
delegate for European Funds, Rovana Plumb.

According to the National Anti-corruption
Agency, Deputy Minister Shhaideh is facing charges of abuse of office during
her term as a state secretary with the Regional Development Minister, while
Rovana Plumb is investigated for conspiracy to abuse of office while serving as
Environment Ministry.

According to anti-graft prosecutors, in 2013,
through the concerted action of people in public office, parts of the Belina
Island and the Danube’s Pavel branch illegally passed from state ownership into
that of the Teleorman county, the fiefdom of the current Social-Democratic
leader Liviu Dragnea. After being managed for only a few days by the Teleorman
County Council, the island and the Danube branch were illegally leased to a
private company. Prosecutors say state-owned property cannot be passed under
the administration of a certain county council through an emergency ordinance,
but only through law.

The anti-corruption agency has called on the
Chamber of Deputies to approve the start of criminal prosecution in the case of
Rovana Plumb, who is a Member of Parliament, while the media, civil society and
the opposition are demanding the resignation of the two cabinet members.

The Social Democratic Party, however, has
decided to give the two ministers its full support, explicitly asking them
not to step down, as this might set a dangerous precedent. Here is the Social
Democratic leader Liviu Dragnea:

Many colleagues have said that such an
approach is unacceptable and dangerous, that the state has been harmed by a
transfer from public hands into public hands. But if that is so, then all
transfers carried out so far have harmed the Romanian state.

The country’s president Klaus Iohannis has
been, however, categorical: the ministers under the investigation by the
National Anti-corruption Directorate should step down or be sacked. People
facing criminal investigation or indictment should not be in leadership
positions, the president concluded:

The best thing would have been for the two ministers in
question to have resigned. The second best thing would have been to sack them.
The fact that the Social Democratic Party is closing ranks around them is not a
good sign. I don’t know whether these ministers are guilty or not, and it’s
neither for me, nor for the Social Democratic Party to establish this fact. Guilt
is something for the judges to establish.

Commentators have noted, however, that there is
little appetite for cleaning up their ranks among the ruling majority made up
of the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats. On Tuesday,
for example, the Senate’s Judicial Committee turned down the request of
anti-corruption prosecutors to allow the start of criminal prosecution against
the Minister for the Relation with Parliament, the Liberal-Democrat Viorel
Ilie, who is accused of having intervened in a competition for public jobs in
the ministry.