On November 9, the European Parliament hosted a public hearing on justice reform in Eastern Europe. The discussion centered around “The EU Approach to Justice Reform in Southeastern and Eastern Europe”, a study co-funded by the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation. The study, produced by the Romanian Center for European Policies (CRPE), takes a close look at the reform of the judiciary and fight against corruption in Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine, Croatia, Serbia, and Macedonia. The analysis of reforms undertaken by each country focused on the institutions charged with fighting corruption, the judicial immunities for judges and other state officials, the independence and accountability of the judiciary. Similarities and differences in the justice systems in the seven countries are discussed in the study, which also recommends various actions to be taken by the EU to more effectively tackle judicial problems in the respective countries.

“The judicial and anticorruption reforms promoted at high cost by the EU are often undermined by the Parliaments. We have to face the reality that these countries face a structural problem: the weak internal demand for anticorruption at the societal level. Unfortunately, the political parties are truly representatives of their people. By the nature of the accession process, EU is substituting this structural deficiency. EU alternates the internal equilibrium by empowering the small groups of reformoriented people within the executive, prosecutors` offices, politics, media, and NGOs that are willing to challenge the status quo, i.e. the traditional de facto immunity of public officials against corruption charges. This is a characteristic of the region often misunderstood in Brussels and in Western countries in general: It is not a rational game between some countries and Brussels, which applies stick and carrot incentives. These countries are not unitary actors moving towards reforms in a coherent and rational strategy. They are actually societies caught in a “civil war” between representatives of the old style status quo and those who challenge it. By empowering these challengers, the EU can provide the right incentives for change. But the reforms in these countries (real reforms, not only changes in the laws) take time, are reversible, imply huge political costs, and are always disruptive rather than consensual.”