EC report on progress in Romania's judiciary: CVM mechanism will stay in place

The Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) set up to help Romania tackle the recognised need for far reaching judicial reform and the fight against corruption following its accession to the European Union on January 1, 2007 will stay in place, reads a report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on Progress in Romania under the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism released on Wednesday in Brussels.

The European Commission sees all the benchmarks as closely interlinked.

Therefore the Commission does not envisage removing the benchmarks one by one
but rather working with Romania to the point where the CVM in its entirety is ended.
The Commission will reassess further progress in summer 2010.

Moreover, the Commission says that the conditions for invoking the safeguard clauses are not fulfilled.

The report does not mention Romania's accession to the Schengen Area and does not say whether or not there is any connection between the CVM and other processes in which Romania is involved, such as the switchover to the single European currency, which Romania intends to achieve in 2011.

AGERPRES