Guest: Government has to take steps

“Corruption is not a hypothetical problem for Romania, it is as real as it gets (…) I cannot tell how many American companies left Romania because of corruption, but I know how many avoided it for fear of corruption,” the US Ambassador in Bucharest Michael Guest on Tuesday night said during a meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania – AmCham. This is Guest’s latest statement on the corruption in Romania made shortly after a meeting with PM Adrian Nastase. The Ambassador added the administration in Bucharest could build a future for the country and for its ties with the EU and the US only by fighting corruption.
Michael Guest and PM Adrian Nastase had had an informal meeting at the Victoria Palace on Monday night, only days after the ambassador had harshly criticised the corruption in Romania. The Prime Minister back then presented the US Ambassador the “imminent” measures aimed a containing corruption and improving the business environment, according to a release issued by the Government on Monday night. On Tuesday, however, the Premier made an angry comment.
“I in my position as Prime Minister do not report to ambassadors in Bucharest. We have discussed issues related to certain developments in Romania to see how the post-conflict situation in Iraq will be improved and Romania’s participation in the reconstruction of Iraq,” Nastase said.
The Prime Minister’s intervention this time did not target the real issue – that is corruption exists and is criticised by foreign officials, but rather wanted to clear up who reports to whom, which thing in his opinion is not correctly judged. This does not clear up another thing, though: what do the imminent anti-corruption measures mentioned in the Government’s release mean? Is it only about the set of anti-corruption measures enforced early this week?
The US Ambassador Michael Guest during his meeting with PM Adrian Nastase received the English version of the set of anti-corruption laws for which the Government had taken responsibility before the Parliament about a month ago, governmental spokesperson Despina Neagoe was quoted as saying by BBC.