European Parliament: Reform Plans and Undoing Laws

european parliament: Timmermans outlined eight new recommendations for immediate follow-up, including undoing laws on mandatory retirement for judges, halting recent changes to the country's criminal code and increasing media freedom, according to Deutsche Welle. Lawmakers in the European Parliament also overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Tuesday that sharply criticized Romania's disputed judicial reform plans. The developments over the last 12 months sadly have called into question and sometimes even reversed the progress made over the last 10 years, Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans told reporters in Strasbourg. EU lawmakers warned that the planned reforms threaten to structurally undermine the independence of the judicial system ... as well as to weaken the rule of law. Liviu Dragnea, head of the ruling Social Democrat party, rejected the Commission's criticism, saying The real topics regarding Romania are beyond any report or monitoring mechanism. The EU's concerns stem from a series of legal and personnel changes that the Social Democrats have pushed through since coming to power two years ago. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.