[JURIST] The European Commission (EC) [official website] on Thursday reported [text, PDF; press release] that Romania has not made sufficient progress in its anti-corruption campaign since its accession to the European Union (EU) two years ago. The EC's report commended initial efforts, such as the drafting of amendments to the Criminal and Civil Codes, but noted that Romania has regressed [International Herald Tribune report] in recent months, with "investigations into some high-level corruption cases remain[ing] blocked by the Romanian Parliament." Romania's next evaluation is scheduled to occur sometime this summer.

The EC has previously chastised both Romania and Bulgaria for failing to make judicial reforms, permitting corruption, and for falling short in efforts to combat organized crime. These issues were addressed in the nations' July 2008 [EC report] evaluations and their June 2007 [JURIST report] progress reports. The two nations joined the EU [JURIST report] in January 2007 after six years of negotiations, at which time they were given benchmarks for implementing the rule of law.