EU Commissioner, Věra Jourová | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images Commission renews warning to Romania over rule of law Romanian MEPs accuse Brussels of double standards over Kövesi indictment.

Romania's government should step back from the brink and consult on any legal changes that could be seen as giving impunity to corruption, European Commissioner for Justice Věra Jourová said in a debate in Strasbourg Monday evening.

"The risk of massive disruption to the Romanian justice system, including to corruption cases, cannot be ignored," Jourová said in a statement regarding the rule of law in the country, which currently holds the rotating Council of the EU presidency.

While Romania's Social Democrat-led government was not represented at the debate, members of the ruling party who sit in the European Parliament accused Jourová and MEPs of double standards and of using Romania as a campaign issue ahead of next month's European election.

"You’re affecting the Romanian justice [system] by intervening," Romanian Socialists & Democrats MEP Maria Grapini told Jourová. "You didn’t give one example of the rule of law being trampled."

The commissioner said that planned changes to Romania's criminal code, and the criminal procedure code regarding a reduction to the statute of limitations for multiple offenses, would be worrisome, if adopted. She also cited a potential emergency decree allowing the reopening of cases involving panels of five judges — which the Romanian Constitutional Court found last year weren't legally constituted.

The indictment of Laura Codruța Kövesi has been seen as a tool for the Romanian government to stop Kövesi becoming the European public prosecutor.

Moreover, the checks and balances for appointing top prosecutors "have been successively watered down," Jourová said. Together with a reinforcement of a special institution set up by the government to investigate judges and prosecutors, "these amount to a very worrying pattern," she said.

That institution's indictment of former top anti-corruption prosecutor, Laura Codruța Kövesi, who is running to be the first European public prosecutor, has also not helped, according to Jourová. In the European Parliament and the Commission, the indictment has been seen as a tool for the Romanian government to stop Kövesi from getting the EU post.

But the Romanian S&D MEPs said this smacks of double standards and of Brussels getting involved in the very justice system it is asking to be protected. "Do you know how many times the Romanian Constitutional Court labeled the actions of Mrs. Kövesi as violating the Romanian Constitution?" asked MEP Victor Boştinaru, without elaborating.

Grapini doubled down, saying: "Romania is not Kövesi, it’s not one person. Romania is 20 million people that we ask you to treat with respect."

Blame game

The debate, which Grapini called a failure as she said only 20 or so people attended, turned into a blame game between the parties in the European Parliament. Representatives of the European People's Party, S&D and liberal ALDE group criticized each other for not having previously excluded from their ranks governing parties in countries such as Romania and Hungary that are seen as backsliding on the rule of law.

"We have formally taken our distance from the Romanian ALDE party to expel them from our political family," said Sophie in 't Veld, a Dutch member of ALDE in the European Parliament. In Romania, ALDE is the junior coalition partner of the Social Democrats (PSD).

While the EPP has suspended the membership of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party, the S&D said last week it is freezing relations with Romania's governing PSD.

PSD leader Liviu Dragnea has responded to the criticism from Brussels by issuing a patriotic campaign message.

"I ask them: Did they help this country with anything? They are scolding us for nothing, they are scolding us for something we have not done," Dragnea said at a rally in the southwestern city of Craiova, a PSD stronghold, on Friday. "Why are they not interested in the effects of PSD’s governance on people's lives? The purchasing power has grown. It’s something worse: I think they care and maybe they do not like [what they see]."

Dragnea appeared in a Bucharest court on Monday in a case where he is accused of having had two people working for the party falsely employed with the child protection services in the county he was leading at the time. He has appealed a three-year jail sentence he was given. The court postponed its ruling until May 20, local media reported.