German Ambassador to Bucharest Wilfried Gruber attacked Romanian bureaucracy and corruption on Monday, in a ceremony held in the western city of Arad, where he was named Doctor Honoris Causa of the local Vasile Goldis University.

He said that while a foreign diplomat is usually joyed with the better parts of his host country, he has found much of the Romanian public administration is still bearing the mark of a strong bureaucracy where lethargy was complementing the arrogance of employees and where corruption was continuously blooming.

He called on all Romanians to continue the political, economic and social reforms for their own interest as while the May 16 European Commission report on Romania found considerable progress on the path of integration, the remaining defficiencies should not be taken as simple “technical issues”.

And Gruber recalled the Berlin Government has supported Romania’s accession not through good words alone, but with numerous bilateral projects and financial assistance of some 250 million euro yearly.