Romanian PM Announces Climbdown after Mass Demonstrations
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Romania's prime minister said the government would repeal a contentious corruption decree that has sparked the biggest protests since the fall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989.
"Tomorrow (Sunday) we will hold a government meeting to repeal this decree," Sorin Grindeanu told a news conference late on Saturday. "I do not want to divide Romania. It can't be divided in two."
The decree, passed on Tuesday and due to enter into force on February 10, makes abuse of power a crime only punishable by jail if the sums involved exceed 200,000 lei (44,000 euros, $47,500).
The leftwing government, which has been in office barely a month, also wants in a separate decree to free some 2,500 people from prison serving sentences of less than five years.
This prompted five straight days of protests including up to an estimated 300,000 on Wednesday night nationwide, the biggest since the ouster of Ceausescu and the communist system in 1989, according to AFP.
Grindeanu says that the measures are to bring penal law into line with the constitution and reduce overcrowding in prisons.
But critics say that the real aim is to let off some of the several thousand officials and politicians ensnared in a major anti-corruption drive in recent years, many of them from Grindeanu's Social Democrats (PSD).
Earlier this week Brussels, which had previously praised European Union member Romania for its efforts on graft, warned against "backtracking".
The US State Department said it was "deeply concerned" that the new measures "undermine rule of law and weaken accountability for financial and corruption-related crimes".
Grindeanu said Saturday that the penal code still had to be brought into line with the constitution.
"We will probably eliminate the 200,000-lei ceiling and send a bill to parliament as soon as possible," he said.
"There has been a lot of confusion and distortion created. Things have not been well explained."
