Council of Europe on Romania: 'Very Little Progress' in Corruption Prevention

(Patria) – Romania has made "very little progress" in preventing corruption in government, according to Council of Europe reports released on Tuesday.

The reports are based on an analysis of the Romanian government's work on the recommendations of GRECO (Group of States Against Corruption), which concluded that this EU member has complied with just over a quarter of the recommendations.

GRECO thus assessed Romania's compliance with the recommendations as "globally unsatisfactory".

The reports were released just over a month after Romania's most powerful politician, Liviu Dragnea, ended up in prison on corruption charges.

The first report states that Romania has implemented only one of the recommendations from the 2018 report, in which GRECO highlighted several issues such as attacks on judicial functions, including the dismissal of the Chief Prosecutor of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, writes the Euronews portal.

The second report, based on an assessment of corruption in Romania, states that only four out of thirteen recommendations have been fully implemented.

The Council of Europe's anti-corruption body recommended a significant reduction in the state's role in appointing prosecutors, and one of the remarks was that Romania has not implemented regulations on lobbying and strict limitations on gifts received by members of parliament.

Romania ranks 61st on the corruption list of 180 countries by Transparency International.