First Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans said that he has seen no progress made by Romania since the EC's latest report under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) last autumn.

He mentioned that all he has seen was the Romanian Government rejecting the report, Hotnews.ro reported. Progress is needed, he stressed.

Timmermans made the statements while visiting Romania to accept the Doctor Honoris Causa title from the political science university SNSPA in Bucharest, on March 11. His comments come after Romania’s prime Minister Viorica Dancila announced that she would talk to Timmermans about setting up of joint committee made of Romanian Government experts and EC experts to analyze the CVM Reports point by point. The CVM itself is a discriminatory instrument, Dancila added.

The EC official said that he submitted a document to PM Dancila, outlining again the issues that need to be settled under the CVM. The expert teams will sit together and discuss them one by one, he added.

"In the spirit of cooperation, I want to solve these issues [on the list], but I want to make it very clear that these issues are very serious and we want to see progress. Let us hope that we will come to an agreement tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but now we have to invest in this relationship and make sure we make progress," Timmermans said.

"When thinking about adopting new legislation, why not ask for advice from an independent body with huge expertise - the Venice Commission - to avoid wrong steps?" he added.

Asked about the likelihood of having Article 7 of the EU Treaty activated in the case of Romania, he avoided a direct answer but said that the CVM gives the EC the chance to settle the issues by alternative means.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea)