July 9, 2018,He has supervised approximately 4,000 arrests.Elite prosecutors, under pressure from Congress, aredismissalwas made a member of the Romanian government's corruption control bureau. Her name is Laura Codruta Covesi, and she has been a star of hope for Romania, a country with serious corruption throughout its borders, since she became the youngest ever director of Romania's Corruption Control Bureau in 2013 at the age of 33 and has exposed corruption among many important figures, including senior government officials and mayors. What does it mean that she has been relieved of her role after five years of fighting political corruption in her country?

Laura Codrula Covesi, director of the Corruption Control Bureau, who has overseen some 4,000 arrests during her nearly five-year term since 2013 (Photo: AGERPRES /Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 3.0]

In Romania, corruption is widespread in a very wide range of sectors - political, military, medical, and private - and is causing concern to foreign investors. The situation is serious because corruption is also found in public offices, including the police and the judiciary, which are supposed to be in a position to combat illegal activities.

In addition to corruption per se, it is important to note that there is an ongoing trend to promote corruption in the legislative branch of government, the parliament. The ruling Partidul Social Democrat (PSD) party is pushing for legal reform with the intention of absolving politicians who are members of their own party of corruption. The popular anti-government protests are resisting this situation. The Congress, which promotes corruption, and the populace, which resists it, have repeatedly gone on the offensive and made very significant progress in 2018.

This article describes the recent corruption problems in Romania. What path has the largest country on the Balkan Peninsula taken over the past few decades, and what is its current situation? We would like to give an overview of contemporary Romanian politics with the keyword "corruption" at the center of the discussion.

Basic Information on Modern Romania

Before we get into the explanation of the problem, a brief summary of basic information about modern Romania is in order. Romania is a nation with a population of approximately 19.76 million (2016) and an area of 238,000 square kilometers, located in Eastern Europe. After World War II, the country adopted communism as a satellite state of the Soviet Union, but democratization was achieved when the 1989 revolution led by President Nicolae Ceauşescu collapsed the communist government. After independence, the country experienced economic stagnation compared to other Eastern European countries, but in the late 1990s, with financial assistance from Western Europe, it made progress in macroeconomic stabilization and reforms toward a market economy, and in 2007 it joined the EU together with Bulgaria on the occasion of its fifth enlargement. Since then, the economy has grown and stagnated several times, but has accelerated significantly since 2015,As of 2017has the highest growth rate of any nation in the Central and Southeastern European region.

Romania's political system is as follows. A republic with a president directly elected by the people as head of state, and a semi-presidential system with a prime minister elected by the parliament to administer the country. Parliament is bicameral with a four-year term of office, and the president serves a five-year term. Constitutionally, Congress and the president are almostIt has equal authority andThe PSD is a coalition government led by the PSD, while President Klaus Johannis, who serves as president, is from the opposition party. In fact, as of January 2019, President Klaus Johannis, who is serving as president of the PSD-led coalition government, is from the opposition party, and the president, parliament, and cabinet are in a twisted situation.be bornThe following is a list of the most common problems with the

From Politics to Business: Corruption in Romania

Corruption is a serious problem in Romania. Transparency International, an international NGO that works against corruption, especiallycorruption perception indexin the world, as of 2017, ranks 59th among 180 countries worldwide (the lower the number, the more corrupt) and is identified as the third most "perceived corrupt" country in Europe.

One sector where corruption frequently occurs is in the political world. For example, at the national political level, in 2009, businessman Yoan Niculae was accused of providing illegal campaign financing to the PSD in his election campaign, and for two yearsimprisonmentIn 2014, the government received 94,000 euros in bribes in exchange for contracts related to automobile insurance for city hall vehicles and garbage trucks. Corruption is also prevalent in local government, as it is at the center: in 2014, the mayor of the city of Cluj-Napoca was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for accepting a €94,000 bribe in exchange for a contract related to automobile insurance for the city hall's vehicles and garbage trucks.sentenceThe first time the company was founded, it was a small company.

The Hall of the People (the seat of the Romanian Parliament) (Photo: Cristian Iohan Ştefănescu /flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0])

The extent to which corruption takes place is not limited to politics. Corruption of varying degrees, large and small, in the judiciary, the police force, the public service, the media, and many other areasrecognitionThe company has been the subject of a number of cases. For example, at water supplier Apa Nova, several employees were continuously bribed between 2008 and 2015 in exchange for higher tariffs on tap water and sewage, which resulted in the company's net profit of 6 millionincreaseThe judicial branch is independent, but in reality it is under strong pressure from the legislature. In addition, although the judicial organization is supposed to be independent, in reality it is under strong pressure from the legislature.activityIn addition to the fact that the judiciary has the power to change its standards for the regulation of corruption (e.g., the legislature can suddenly change its standards for the regulation of corruption) and that the delivery of bribes within the judiciary can affect court rulings, thequestion (e.g. on a test)has occurred frequently.

National Anti-Corruption Bureau and People Power to combat rampant corruption

As mentioned above, corruption is widespread in Romania in various sectors of the country, but it should also be noted that, at the same time, measures to combat corruption have been actively taken. The National Anti-Corruption Agency (Direcţia Naţională Anticorupţie, hereafter DNA) has played a central role in anti-corruption efforts from within government agencies. As the name suggests, the DNA's mandate is to crack down on corruption in all areas, but in particular, since the appointment of the Director General Laura Kovesi (2013), mentioned at the beginning of this article, the DNA has successfully cracked down on numerous cases of corruption. 1,138 people were arrested in 2014.indicted andAnd also in 2015, there were 970guilty verdictThe Bureau has been involved in the prosecution of numerous cases of corruption.

Nor are the people, who are located outside of the public administrative apparatus, sitting idly by and letting corruption go unchecked. Resistance to corruption from a non-institutional angle has been demonstrated by grassroots popular movements, motivated by protests against high unemployment, economic conditions, and government corruption in the wake of the 2012 reform of the health and welfare system, which undermines the people's standard of living.antigovernment movementtook place. Since then, the civic movement has made no small achievements in the anti-corruption movement, with the massive protests of 2017 a prime example: in January 2017, the National Assembly passed a bill exonerating convictions within five years for several crimes, and a budget damage of less than $47,522 a bill to decriminalize abuse of power.suggestionWhen the "Cuban Revolution" was announced, protests were held throughout the country in response. The peak of theFebruary 5After the government withdrew the bill, it was continued as a protest against the ruling PSD, and in June Prime Minister Sorin GrindeanuretreatThe company was forced to

Romanian citizens take part in a protest in the capital Bucharest (Photo: Mihai Petre /Wikimedia commons [CC BY-SA 4.0])

Does the Government Have the Upper Hand Against Anti-Corruption Moves? ：2018Events of the year

As we saw in the previous section, anti-corruption efforts, promoted from the standpoint of government agencies and civil society movements, have had some success, but in 2018, the movement has begun to run into an impasse. Below, we will organize some key events in Romanian politics in 2018 in chronological order.

First, a new bill was submitted by the Cabinet of Mihai Tudose in January 2018. The bill submitted by the cabinet includes: corruption suspects will attend court hearings of victims; house searches will only be possible after the suspect has been notified; video footage will be excluded from the investigationstatementThe bill was passed by the National Assembly in November 2008, and appears to have been intended to make it more difficult to convict people of corruption. In response, a crowd of some 50,000 to 100,000 people staged protests, which were intended to force the dismissal of the bill and the resignation of Prime Minister Tudose.Success.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

But about six months later, in July, things took a dark turn when, under pressure from the PSD-majority Congress, the aforementioned DNA Director, Laura Covesi, was removed from her position as director of thedismissedThe first time this happened was in 1983, when a group of Romanians were killed in an anti-government protest. In response, anti-government demonstrations took place throughout Romania on August 10. Romanians who had emigrated outside the country (Romanian Diaspora) also joined the demonstrations.return tripThe event was attended by 100,000 people in the capital city of Bucharest alone, and tens of thousands of people in other cities in total.demonstrationThe government mobilized the police to suppress it with force. The government mobilized the police to suppress it with force, injuring a total of 455 people and 30arrestThe protests were The demonstration eventually succumbed to the government's armed repression and was extinguished without Covesi's reinstatement.

Violent clashes between police and protesters (Photo: Cristian Iohan Ştefănescu /flickr [CC BY 2.0])

The PSD's move to shield the crackdown on corruption continued to move forward, and in October,legal reformThe requirements to become an anti-corruption prosecutor are being tightened by the In reaction to these developments, a crowd of about 2,000 people in the capital in DecemberDemonstration.However, they were not able to achieve any results.

The EU has expressed concern about these developments in the Romanian Parliament: in a January 2019 press conference with Romanian President Johannis, he told the Romanian government that a legal reform to provide amnesty for corruption suspects would "damage the very essence of the EU."alarm bellsounded the congressional policy in sync with the January 2017 protests.Critique.Mr. Johannis has shown himself to be more than willing to fight corruption, including the following. It will be interesting to see how he will take action against the direction of the Congress.

Romania and the Future of Europe

This article has reviewed the political history of the 2010s, focusing primarily on the corruption problem in Romania and the DNA and popular movements against it. In Romania, corruption is widespread in various sectors, including politics, the judiciary, and the private sector, and parliament is pushing for legislative changes that would encourage it. The DNA as a regulatory body and the general public have been resisting this, but the reality is that the battle has entered a difficult phase in 2018.

Such political corruption is not only found in Romania, but also in neighboring Bulgaria (2017 "Corruption Perceptions IndexOther Eastern European countries (former communist powers), such as Belarus (ranked 73rd in the world) and Belarus (ranked 68th), share the same challenges. in Western and Central Europe.Expansion of populist forcesIn combination with this, European democracy is facing a difficult phase.

Writer: Shunta Tomari

Graphic: Saki Takeuchi

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