Senate president Călin Popescu Tăriceanu, also the president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), argued that the Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) has helped turn Romania into the most corrupt country in Europe, Mediafax reported. This happened because of the convictions for abuse of office, an offence that is not incriminated in other European countries, he said.

“Abuse of office is not incriminated in other countries in Europe, such as France or Germany. Here, everybody was accused, 90% of the files prosecuted by the DNA concern the abuse of office, a crime related to corruption. All these have turned Romania into a case I deplore because Romania has become, with the help of the DNA, the most corrupt country in Europe on the number of reported corruption cases,” Tăriceanu said.

Last month, the ALDE leader was arguing that corruption has become Romania’s country brand because of the activity of the DNA head, Laura Codruta Kovesi. He also compared the anti-corruption fight to the 1950s campaign against the bourgeoisie.

Tăriceanu also said it was normal to look at how the criminal codes are made, how crimes are defined and to align them with European practice.

The Chamber of Deputies adopted on June 18 the controversial changes to the criminal procedure code proposed by the ruling coalition.

The new provisions of the criminal procedure code favor people targeted by criminal investigations as they limit the possibility to perform wiretaps and shorten the prosecution stage. If prosecutors can’t send someone to court within a year, the case is automatically closed.

At the same time, the ALDE president said that the opposition party Save Romania Union (USR) is “the doing of the secret services” judging by the way its members behave at public events or in the parliament.

“I am not impressed with the [National Liberal Party] PNL and the USR, the slogans and the raised hands. I think the USR is the doing of the secret services, from the way they behave in public, at public events and in the parliament,” he said, quoted by Mediafax.

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editor@romania-insider.com