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Southeast Europe
March 31, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 12
priority is to steer the country into the EU.
In 2014 Vucic travelled to Russia shortly after
the early parliamentary elections. On his return to Belgrade, Dacic’s pro-Russian SPS was sud- denly brought into government in a coalition with the Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), even though the SNS had more than enough MPs to form
a government alone. Even more surprisingly, after that visit to Moscow then energy minister Zorana Mi- hajlovic, an energy expert and high-level SNS mem- ber who had already started implementing reforms in the sector, was replaced by SPS official Alek- sandar Antic who didn’t have any prior experience in the energy field. He still serves as energy minister and supports Vucic’s candidacy for president.
Former Romania tourism minister sentenced to 6 years for corruption
bne IntelliNews
Former Romanian Tourism Minister Elena Udrea was sentenced on March 28 to six years in prison for bribe-taking and abuse of office. The case re- lates to a boxing gala held in 2011 that the former minister is accused of funding with public money.
Romania has taken important steps in fighting cor- ruption recently and Udrea is the latest in a long list of top officials who have been sentenced to prison or investigated for corruption. A recent move by the government to partly decriminalise abuse of office resulted in mass protests that continued for weeks, the biggest since the fall of communism. The protestors expressed their support for the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), the institution charged with investigating corruption cases.
In the boxing gala case, dubbed as Gala Bute, Udrea, a close ally of former president Traian Basescu, received three sentences for taking bribes and one sentence for abuse of office. The ruling is not
final and can be challenged. She was acquitted of intention to use forged or incomplete statements, News.ro reported. The former minister will have to pay the tourism ministry damages of RON8.1mn (€1.8mn). Udrea has already served several months under preventive arrest and house arrest.
The former chairman of the Romanian Boxing Federation, Rudel Obreja, was sentenced to five
years in prison for tax evasion, while Udrea’s as- sistant received a three-year prison sentence for complicity. Former economy minister Ior Ariton was acquitted in the same case, while others were given suspended sentences.
According to the prosecution, in June 2011 the re- gional development and tourism minister granted a contract to Europlus Computers, a company owned by Obreja, without organising a tender for the work. The company, which was supposed to promote Romania during a boxing match, was paid RON8.1mn by the ministry for advertising services in February 2012, News.ro reported.
“The public funds were used illegally to finance an event organised through a private company and the funds paid according to the contract represent a damage to the ministry,” prosecutors said.
“The contract was intended to actually provide the funds for organising the boxing gala, and the acquisition of advertising services represented just a formal justification for which there was no real need, with the sole aim to give a legal ap- pearance to the contract,” the prosecutors said, adding that the contract was awarded in viola- tion of the legal procedures related to the public acquisitions.