Romania's war on corruption is regressing on all fronts, a report by Belgian prosecutor Willem de Pauw, a noted European Commission (EC) adviser on fighting corruption, says. The report, which was written in November 2007 but came to light just this month, warns "if the Romanian anti-corruption effort keeps evaporating at the present pace, in an estimated six months' time, Romania will be back where it was in 2003."

The report, cited by The Economist, is just the latest criticism of Romanian authorities' efforts against corruption, which many see as having slackened since the country joined the EU in January 2007. The drawn-out cases against former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase and former Transport Minister Miron Mitrea have infuriated EU ambassadors in Bucharest.

Recent rulings by the country's Constitutional Court say all investigations of high-ranking politicians require parliamentary approval. Under those decisions, parliament provided shelter for the two former officials. "The recent measures serve only to raise obstacles to the fight against corruption," British Ambassador Robin Barnett said.

De Pauw slammed such protection as "illogical". He says such immunity, once meant to thwart politically driven investigations, is no longer justified for former ministers.

"Many of the measures that were presented, before accession, to be instrumental in the fight against corruption have been deliberately blunted by parliament or the government immediately after accession," de Pauw's report says.

Nastase writes on his blog that the release of this report eight months after it was written was meant to "[manipulate] public opinion by blaming the whole political class and the judges who oppose the anti-corruption [efforts] and who disobey President Traian Basescu's directions, who dare cast doubts over the alleged reform introduced by Monica Macovei and who refuse to submit to the procedural acts drawn up by the presidential prosecutors".

The Global Report on Corruption 2008 by Transparency International also noted that "despite the Anti-Corruption Department's ... intensive activity, the justice system has not yet produced convictions in cases of high-level corruption" and underlined that "the recent practice has been to grant a large number of suspended sentences in major corruption trials."

The new EC report for Romania and Bulgaria's progress on justice will appear next week. In February, interim reports denounced the two countries for high-level corruption, but the tone was less strident. Sources say the document next week will be much more aggressive about the two countries' lack of progress, possibly leading to a withdrawal of EU funding.