In Romania the politicians tried to interpret the report of the Commission in their own political interest

The The EC report on Wednesday said the process of judicial reform in Romania offered a mixed picture: on the one hand the country has made institutional progress in the fight against corruption, meaning the National Direction Anticorruption and the existence of the Integrity Agency. On the other hand, Brussels warns Romania that major political high level corruption cases were left unsolved so far because of political interference in the judicial process.

So the Romanian liberal Government (very criticized in the country because of the faint results it had in reforms - health, agriculture and justice) and the Parliament breath freely there haven't been any financial sanctions like as it happened with Bulgaria.

The reactions on the report were mixed on the Romanian political scene. All politicians said the evaluation was objective, critic and balanced. But not to forget Romania is in political campaign for the legislative elections in autumn, in consequence politicians from different parties tried to interpret the report of the Commission in their own political interest.

So the liberal prime-minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu used the moment to underline the progress his government made in reforming the judicial system and assured people and Brussels of further quicker progress. But The Democrat Liberal Party (PD-L), as the main news-papers and TV-channels do, blame the Parliament for delaying of high corruption cases. The Parliament managed to delay important high corruption files in which four former and current politicians are involved.

The kind of "silent coalition" formed in the Parliament by social-democrats (PSD), liberals (PNL) and conservatives (PC) refused to give green light for the corruption files of former social democrat prime-minister Adrian Nastase, former social-democrat minister of Transport Miron Mitrea, the current liberal minister of Work (social affairs) Paul Pacuraru and former conservative minister of Economy Codrut Seres. The law, that investigation of high corruption files need the approval of MPs was very criticized by Romanian media and president Traian Basescu.

Now the EC's report confirms these critics. That confirms and deepens the mistrust of Romanians on MPs, on politicians in general. What happened with Bulgaria should concern Romanian governors, because it can happen to Romania too.

The leader of the social democrat party, Mircea Geoana criticized every one in a populist speech - the government, the president and even the European Commission for treating Romania as a "second-hand member state". And am I m sure the political campaign of parties will concentrate on populist speeches on corruption.

Nevertheless, in my opinion the most realistic reaction we had on the report is the one of the European Commissioner Leonard Orban. He warned that the danger of financial sanctions as it happened with Bulgaria still is. And Bruxelles can apply the safeguard clauses for Romania, if there is no progress in justice till the end of 2009.

And not to forget, Romania is still monitored by EU one year and half after becoming a member-sate , like no other European country had been before. The monitoring procedure, so-called mechanism of cooperation and verification remains.

In my opinion, Romania made some quick reforms on managing the European funds only in the last months and only to avoid sanctions of the European Commission. But there are still big institutional delays on managing these European money and big concerns the money could vanish in a black hole, because of corruption.

That warning and danger is confirmed by the European politicians. For example, Gunther Kriechbaum, leader of Foreign Affairs-committee in the German Parliament said that the German Parliament will propose Chancellor Angela Merkel to ask the EC to apply the safeguard clauses at the next report, if there is no progress in Romanian justice and anti-corruption fight.