President calls EC phrasing that Romania is breaking commitments 'unacceptable' and 'out of proportion'

President Traian Basescu said the phrasing of the European Commission (EC) that Romania is breaking its commitments is “inacceptable” and “an exaggeration” and Romania wishes the EC to have a “balanced approach.” The president made these statements during a press conference at Cotroceni Palace.

Basescu said that he understands the dissatisfaction of the European Commission regarding the National Integrity Agency (ANI).

Quoting the CE report which said ‘the ANI law severely undermines the efficacy of the verification process, the sanctioning and confiscation of the unjustified goods’ the president said this phrasing “seems extremely tough, and for good reason.”

The president said he himself is dissatisfied with the ANI law but what happened represents “an incident.” “For this incident- the ANI law- to cast a negative impression, when in fact enough progress has been made, which was noticed in the report- seems to me an exaggeration,” said the president.

“I want you to know that we have always believed we should have a decent relation with the European Commission and even now my point of view is that we should continue to cooperate. We will not accept, however, with all the respect for the European Commission, phrasing that does not reflect reality, such as ‘Romania does not respect its commitments.’ This phrasing could have been ‘the Romanian Senate did not respect its commitments’ because Romania is a big country and it has 22 million people,” said Basescu.

The president also said there are institutions such as the Chamber of Deputies or the Government which had a totally correct attitude concerning the law and that he himself has sent the law back twice.

“I think the phrasing is unjust and for this reason I feel I am compelled to react, and to show that Romania respects its commitments, that we are determined to see them through, that we will not accept that the Mechanism of Cooperation and Verification comes out of the parameters in which it was set when Romania joined the European Union, and I have the conviction that together- politicians, government, parliament, the opposition within the parliament- we will find the formulas so that the new ANI law will cover the commitments that Romania took,” he said.