According to g4media.ro, the members of the Legal Commission of the Chamber of Deputies approved almost entirely the amendments proposed by the Social Democrat Laura Vicol, to the draft law on integrity warnings. Despite all the recommendations and warnings from legal experts and officials from the Ministry of Justice, PSD, PNL, UDMR MPs and those of minorities did not listen.
Contacted by g4media by phone, the president of the Association for Cooperation and Sustainable Development, Radu Nicolae, confirmed more than half an hour ago that he left the meeting of the Legal Commission and that what happened there is inconceivable.
“It simply came to our notice then. People are not aware that these amendments are not well prepared. They simply did not want to hear, although they were offered all the arguments. The PSD, PNL, UDMR MPs and those from the Minorities built a wall of the coalition and did not listen to anything “, said Radu Nicolae.
He points out that the problem is not only that the amendments to the bill have not been properly prepared, but also that the form in which the law now appears will create major problems for Romania, in relation to the European Commission, regarding the implementation of the National Recovery Plan. and Resilience (PNRR).
“They were not even flexible enough to realize that the proposed amendments to this bill blow up the PNRR. Everything that was provided in the draft law – texts, articles – was agreed with the European Commission, and the representatives of the Ministry of Justice repeated this obsessively, that they are milestones in the PNRR. They didn’t want to hear, they voted in the bloc “, shows Radu Nicolae.
In its current form, the bill would be put to a vote in parliament on Thursday, and if adopted, Romania risks huge losses, on the one hand in terms of press freedom and on the other hand in terms of implementing PNRR.
“The European Commission will be able to launch an infringement procedure against Romania. There will be fines that will be paid from our money “, warned Radu Nicolae, who also says that he does not understand why the parliamentarians hurried to vote for these amendments. According to g4media.ro sources, the voted amendments were proposed by the head of the Legal Commission, Laura Vicol.
One answer could be the fact that a blockade on PNRR is wanted, given that some leaders of the governing coalition have repeatedly expressed themselves about the need to “renegotiate” PNRR, at the European Commission.
The following changes have been made in the current form of the law, shows Radu Nicolae:
- The presumption of good faith of the whistleblower was removed;
- Alert reports must be destroyed after two years;
- Alerters have the right to publicly disclose information about the violation of the law only after three months and only if they have reported internally in advance, etc.
- Some of the amendments adopted are also illogical and seem to be linguistic errors, such as excluding the possibility for municipalities to associate to create internal reporting mechanisms (thus, the costs would have been greatly reduced). In fact, these mistakes were intentional.
- The internal reporting mechanism has become inapplicable at the level of communes (small localities). You cannot have an internal reporting mechanism if the institution has 7 employees, including a porter.
- Anonymous reporting has been removed.
- Fines for those who persecute whistleblowers have been greatly reduced.
- A few other things were saved, for example the provision in the law in force regarding the obligation to invite the press to the meetings of the disciplinary commissions in which the warnings are disciplinary investigated was maintained.
- Free legal aid has been provided for whistleblowers.
We remind you that the amendments proposed by the President of the Legal Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, Laura Vicol, to the draft law transposing a European directive on whistleblowers empty the content law. Voting on the amendments only discourages the reporting of acts of corruption and violations of the law.
Laura Vicol recently told Libertatea that the amendments were not formulated by her and that they were tabled on behalf of the Governing Coalition. “They are not my amendments, they come from the discussions in the governing coalition, from all parties. Everyone has learned to give in to Vicol, it’s not okay. I can’t answer the questions now, I just wanted to clarify, because I’m tired of Vicol always being the head of the table “, said the PSD deputy.
The amendments proposed by Laura Vicol concern the draft law on the transposition of the European directive on the protection of persons reporting breaches of Union law (1937/2019). The bill has already been adopted by the Senate and has been debated in the Legal Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, for a report. He would enter the plenary tomorrow.
Photo source: Ilona Andrei / G4Media.ro
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