Understanding Romania’s anticorruption hunt
By Vlad Stoicescu
To get a glimpse of what is happening one should understand first the legal mechanisms that put in motion Romania’s anti-corruption framework. The National Anticorruption Directorate was set up in 2002. Back then it was a step towards judicial reform and compliance with European standards in a period in which Bucharest was negotiating the country’s accession to the EU. For a couple of years it was just a “showcase institution”, formally highlighting the political will to combat Romania’s pervasive corruption.