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Former CCR Judge: Romania wanted to join the EU, now we don’t want to be there
Romania was not forced to join the select club of European Union, it wanted to, changed the Constitution and assumed obligations, by signing the Accession Treaty, which now we don’t want to meet, former MP and Chairman of the Constitutional Court, Augustin Zegrean, said on Wednesday for ziare.com.
Asked what is going on in Romania, Zegrean said: “I don’t know what is happening, I can say that (when joining the EU – our note) Romania was not under the occupation of European troops.”
“Romania was the one asking to join the European Union and we made great efforts to be taken over by this group of serious countries. When accessing, we signed a treaty, because the EU is a convention. We signed and we have committed to observe and implement all the provisions of the European conventions and the European legislation. Moreover, in view of accession, we wrote in the Constitution that, if the European legislation regarding the human rights is more advantageous than the Romanian one, the European legislation will prevail. So, we have committed to do whatever needed related to the Union and we were proud, we were happy when we joined the EU. Now I see we don’t want to be there anymore, because we do not meet their demands. It’s not about orders, it is about observing the European legislation and the EU principles,” Augustin Zegrean said.
Asked what will happen if the political majority in Bucharest decides not to implement the commitments assumed by Romania in relation with the European partners, Zegrean said: “I don’t know what they would do, but I believe this situation is not going to last forever, not to do what we have to do, things resulting from the treaties we have signed.”
The former CCR chairman said he had seen other critical CVM reports, but not as critical as this one.
“I’ve read them since 2007, all of them; there was a time when I welcomed the CVM delegations to have talks. I see that now the Constitutional Court refuses to see them. I don’t understand this attitude, because those people don’t come here to teach us bad things. They never said ‘do this’. They asked questions or allowed us to have our say on the topic. There was no interference from them. Let’s not forget that, since 2015-2016 the reports were better, but now we have to start all over again. This is a curse on Romanians: always to start all over again. We never complete things, we always start from the beginning. There is no drama for this report, we need to know it, to admit they are right, it’s obvious they are right. It’s not them who have brought amendments to the judiciary in Romania, it’s us,” Zegrean said.
Augustin Zegrean has also confirmed the information on Tuesday, delivered by Judge Cristi Danilet on Facebook, reading that a Constitutional Court decision was issued in 2012, by which Romania has to observe and meet the CVM reports’ recommendations.
“There is a decision, indeed. But there’s a dialogue of the deaf and we could finally reach the measures provided by the treaties: the withdrawal of the voting right, cuts of budget allocations and many others. The last one is the exclusion from the EU, but I hope it would not be the case, no one has been excluded yet. I repeat: it is not a special demand for Romania, they say that things implemented in Europe should be implemented also here. We either are in the EU or we are not,” the former CCR chairman said.