Romanian authorities have listened to “the voice of the streets”

For the past week Romania have been experiencing mass protests, which reminded Ukrainians of Euromaidan, when hundreds of thousands of people in major cities took to the demonstrations, outraged that the Ukrainian authorities backed off from the European integration of Ukraine. Now, the thousand-strong protests in Bucharest and other major Romanian cities were caused by the intention of the Social-Democratic government to weaken the anti-corruption legislation. According to the decree, government officials would have been exempted from criminal prosecution related to abuse of power, if the damage they caused is less than 44,000 euros. Almost 2,500 of the previously convicted should have left prisons early. In particular, this statute would have allowed Liviu Dragnea, leader of the Social Democrats, to avoid criminal prosecution – he is now serving a suspended sentence related to accusations of fraudulent employment and of causing financial loss that amount to 24,000 euros.