Romanian ministers quit

By Dana Spinant

Date: 23/10/03

THREE of Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase's senior ministers stood down on Monday, amid claims they had been implicated in corruption.

Hildegard Puwak, minister for European integration, is alleged to have diverted funding from the EU's Leonardo vocational training programme to her son and husband. The European Commission has ordered her family to pay back €150,000. Nastase said Puwak had quit to sort out her personal difficulties and that she did not want the allegations to affect Romania's accession negotiations with the EU.

The other two ministers to go were health boss Mircea Beuran and Serban Miailescu, secretary-general of the government. Beuran has been found guilty by a Bucharest commission of plagiarizing American and French medical textbooks. Mihailescu was accused of involvement in corruption by his aides, who were charged with seeking bribes to facilitate business deals.

The European Commission is about to publish a report on Romania's chances of joining the Union in 2007. Nastase had insisted the ministers were innocent, but said he reluctantly accepted their resignations "to avoid creating any problems for the government". Romania has come increasingly under fire from the EU for corruption and the progress report, due to be published on 5 November, will assess whether the government has put its pledges in practice.