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Southeast Europe
November 17, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 16
As president, he has pursued further EU integration for Slovenia — the first country from Southeast Europe to join the bloc and the region’s only eurozone member. This is in contrast to the stance of several of his peers in the Visegrad Four countries, and has helped Slovenia’s reputation among investors.
European Commission criticises Bulgaria and Romania over sluggish judicial reforms, anti- corruption efforts
Denitsa Koseva in Sofia and Carmen Simion in Bucharest
The European Commission criticised Bulgaria and Romania for their lack of progress in judicial reform and the fight against corruption in its latest Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) report issued on November 15.
While the two countries have made some progress, their failure to meet all criteria set by the EC means hopes of the CVM being lifted this year were dashed. The mechanism, introduced to monitor issues of corruption and the rule of law that were not addressed before their accession to the EU, will be extended at least until the end of 2018.
With the aim of meeting the EC’s criteria to end the CVM, both countries put a lot of effort into changing legislation before the latest report. However the two governments have been strongly criticised by citizens and organisations for their lack of transparency and, in the case of Romania, the government seems unwilling to actually undertake the necessary reforms.
Despite his loss to Pahor, Sarec’s performance highlights the fact that Slovenians like new faces on the political scene, and Videtic forecast that he will continue his political career, even though the election campaign revealed that Sarec lacks political experience and a strong position on foreign relations.
Anti-corruption protesters in Bucharest's Victory Square.
Romania had previously been seen as a rising star in the fight against corruption, given the intense activity of the country's National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA). However, the EC noted in
the report on Romania that reform momentum was lost this year, slowing down the fulfilment
of some of the recommendations made by the
EC, and with the risk of re-opening issues which the January 2017 report had considered as fulfilled. Challenges to judicial independence have also been a persistent source of concern, the commission warned in its report.
“[D]espite the commitment of the government to seek to close the CVM as soon as possible, progress in addressing the January 2017 CVM recommendations has been affected by the political situation. Within a nine months period since the January 2017 report, Romania has seen two governments, while growing tensions between state powers (parliament, government and judiciary) made the cooperation between them increasingly difficult,” the report said.