Romania’s President Pushes For Quick Adoption Of Integrity Agency Law

The president said that, if ANI does not become functional, discussions on Romania's accession to the Schengen area might also consider the European Commission's Cooperation and Verification Mechanism.

Basescu said ANI's activity can only be regulated by laws to be approved in Parliament, and emergency decrees are not valid in this case.

The head of state said he wishes the Parliament would solve the problem regarding the agency in ten days.

Romania's Government Monday approved a draft law regulating the functioning of the National Integrity Agency.

Romanian President Traian Basescu met Monday with representatives of parliamentary parties for talks on the Constitutional Court ruling which stripped the country's integrity agency of its main attributions in screening public officials' wealth and interest statements and recommending prosecution for wrongdoing.

Basescu said after the meeting with representatives of parliamentary parties that all participants in discussions agreed that the matter should be tackled quickly, so that the law regulating ANI's functioning be adopted in Parliament within ten days.

Romania's integrity agency, a EU-backed public anticorruption body, has been stripped of its main attributions in screening public officials wealth and interest statements, following a Constitutional Court ruling. The Court, which motivated its decision last week, the integrity agency's law is unconstitutional, as it breaches the right to privacy and does not apply the presumption of innocence to those investigated.

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