Romania’s new decree diluting the country’s corruption law ignited a furor on Thursday, prompting strong criticism from home and abroad and a declaration from the president that he would ask judges to declare it unconstitutional.
Tens of thousands protested for the third night in Bucharest, the capital, and thousands more in some 20 other Romanian cities, calling for the government to resign after issuing the watered-down emergency decree a day earlier, AP reported.
But Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu said the government would not repeal the decree, deepening the political crisis.
President Klaus Iohannis announced he will take the decree to the Constitutional Court, the last legal resort to stop the law by the ruling center-left Social Democrats, whose leader, Liviu Dragnea, is among those with a corruption conviction.
The ordinance decriminalizes official misconduct if the funds involved are less than 200,000 lei ($47,800). Critics say the measure helps government allies and other officials facing corruption charges get out of prison or clear their records and claim it will encourage more officials to steal on the job.
Dragnea defended the decree, which did not go through parliament, saying it would not “free corrupt people.”
With a two-year suspended prison sentence for vote rigging, Dragnea says he wants a retrial. The conviction bars him from serving as prime minister, which he says is unfair.
In a statement, the US, Germany, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands and France said Romania’s government had undermined “progress on rule of law and the fight against corruption over the past 10 years.”
European Commission Vice President Frank Timmermans urged the Romanian government on Thursday to “urgently reconsider” the decree, warning that if it is adopted, it could affect the EU funds that Romania gets.
