Slaying Corruption – Or How Romania is Fighting Its Biggest Enemy , CEE Legal Matters Magazine, September 2017

Since Romania’s accession to the European Union in 2007, the European Commission has set up a Cooperation and Verication Mechanism (CVM) in order to monitor, among other strategic points, the progress of Romania’s ght against corruption.

The CVM Report, which was published on January 25, 2017, concluded that judicial reform and the ght against corruption have been key issues for Romanian society over the last ten years.

Romanian society has indeed changed signicantly in the past ten years, as the level of awareness and the perception of the civil society regarding high-level corruption has shifted from acceptance to extreme disapproval. For instance, at the beginning of 2017, there were massive protests in many of the country’s major cities for an ordinance created by the Romanian Government that decriminalized and/or reduced the criminal punishments for corruption offences such as abuse of oce, conict of interest, and negligence at work. In response to the largest street protests in the past 25 years, the Government repealed the ordinance.

The most important reasons for the changes in the Romanian view of high-level corruption are:

• the creation of a comprehensive legal framework for ghting corruption crimes;
• the creation of independent judicial institutions investigating, prosecuting, and deciding upon high-level corruption cases;
• and last but not least, the efforts made in the elaboration and implementation of anti-corruption procedures.

Even though the investigation and punishment of wrongdoers are important parts of the fight against corruption, the key element to changing society’s view of corruption is the institution of prevention policies, meant to change the society’s perception of the offense.