The situation in the Romanian judicial sector raises concerns and key activities such as the fight against high level corruption have yet to deliver convincing results, a European Commission interim report on the justice sector in Romania shows on Monday. It says the six months since the previous such report are too short a period for Romania to regain ground so the report is a factual update on the progress reported by the country, without an evaluation of results for each objective.

Romanian authorities are urged to deal with the problems by June 2008 when the decisive final report will be published. Thus, the report simply outlines the main progresses registered both in Romania and Bulgaria in the field of justice.

The report also refers to the National Integrity Agency and urge authorities to set it up as soon as possible. Another recommendation is to develop a general strategy for the fight against corruption and implement it thoroughly.

Conclusions of the report:

- Romania has yet to deliver convincing results in key areas such as the fight against corruption

- There are delays as far as the application of a coherent strategy of recruitment in the judiciary system is concerned

- There are delays in the establishment of the National Agency of Integrity

- There are delays in setting and applying a global strategy for the fight against local-level corruption

Romania has to improve its efforts to fight high-level corruption and should boost efforts to maintain legislative and institutional stability for the framework of Romania's fight against corruption.

UPDATE: The Commission also lauded the activity of the Romanian Anti-corruption Department, but showed concern that there are ten important cases that have been postponed for the past six months and some cases have been compromised procedurally, as EC spokesman Mark Gray put it.

The EC report on Romanian justice also slams the action plan supported by ex-Justice minister Chiuariu who resigned late last year. According to the report, the action plan put forward by Chiuariu was inconsistent and the Commission recommends considerable changes be made to it.