The Cooperation and Verification Mechanism for Romania and Bulgaria could be expanded to all EU members

The European Parliament adopted a resolution urging the European Commission to replace the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), which targets Romania and Bulgaria, with an instrument aimed to assess the state of democracy and rule of law in all EU member states.

To end the current “crisis-driven” approach to perceived breaches of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights in EU member states, the European Commission should set up a binding EU mechanism to monitor and report annually on their records in these fields, the MEPs said in a resolution passed on Tuesday. This mechanism should include objective benchmarks and lay down a gradual approach to remedying breaches, they added.

The European Commission should create a binding mechanism for the annual monitoring of data in these fields, according to the resolution adopted by the European Parliament. The Parliament asked the Commission to present a proposal by September 2017 for a Union Pact for Democracy, the Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights in the form of an inter-institutional agreement aligning and complementing existing mechanisms.

The Cooperation and Verification Mechanism was introduced by the European Commission when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007 to monitor the progress of the two countries on the rule of law, corruption fight, and, in the case of Bulgaria, to counter organized crime.

The European Commission has been publishing the CVM reports on Romania and Bulgaria every year, at the end of January. The latest CVM reports show that Romania has made significant progress in fighting top-level corruption in recent years, which is why some politicians in Bucharest have been asking the European Commission to remove Romania from the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism.

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