(ANSA) - BRUXELLES, 24 GEN - The European Commission "will look thoroughly at the final amendments to the justice law, the criminal codes, and laws on conflict of interest and corruption" to establish if they can actually "safeguard the independence of the judiciary and combat corruption". The President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and the First Vice-President Frans Timmermans have today expressed "concerns" over the latest judiciary developments in Romania.

In a joint statement, Juncker and Timmermans call on the Romanian Parliament "to rethink the course of action proposed and to open up the debate in line with the Commission's recommendations".

They also stressed that the Romanian government has to meet the benchmarks set out by the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), a measure established by the European Commission when Romania joined the EU in 2007 to evaluate the progress made by the country on judiciary reforms and the fight against corruption. Since the latest CVM report, published in November 2017, "events have done nothing" to address the concerns of the European Union, they said.(ANSA).