Romanian President Set To Reject Integrity Agency Bill If It Strips Agency Of More Attributions

Basescu said he will reject the bill if he finds that lawmakers have exceeded the recommendations made by the Constitutional Court, thus stripping the agency of the attributions for which it was created.

The president said he is not familiar with the details of the integrity agency bill and has not "read" anything about it, but he added that he will soon bring himself up to speed.

Several NGOs sent letters to the Presidential Office Wednesday and Thursday, asking the head of state to reject the integrity agency bill and harshly criticizing certain provisions of the bill, which was adopted Wednesday by the Senate.

The bill was also criticized by the United States ambassador to Romania, Mark Gitenstein, who said that the Senate made amendments to the bill which had not been requested by the Constitutional Court and which will "weaken" the integrity agency.

Romania's Government in April put forth a draft law regulating the activity of the National Integrity Agency, a EU-backed public anticorruption body, after a Constitutional Court ruling stripped it of its main attributions in screening public officials wealth and interest statements and recommending prosecution for wrongdoing.

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