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Romania Reverses Decision to Weaken Corruption Law

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BUCHAREST, Romania — After five straight days of spirited mass protests, and predictions that a half-million or more people might take to the streets on Sunday,

“>Romania’s month-old government backed down Saturday and withdrew a decree that had decriminalized some corruption offenses.

“We will hold an extraordinary meeting on Sunday to repeal the decree, withdraw it, cancel it,” Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu said late Saturday evening.

It was a remarkable and rapid turnaround for a government that had shown every sign of holding firm against the protests.

As recently as Thursday, Mr. Grindeanu said, “We took a decision in the government and we are going to press ahead.”

BUCHAREST, Romania — After five straight days of spirited mass protests, and predictions that a half-million or more people might take to the streets on Sunday, Romania’s month-old government backed down Saturday and withdrew a decree that had decriminalized some corruption offenses.

“We will hold an extraordinary meeting on Sunday to repeal the decree, withdraw it, cancel it,” Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu said late Saturday evening.

It was a remarkable and rapid turnaround for a government that had shown every sign of holding firm against the protests.

As recently as Thursday, Mr. Grindeanu said, “We took a decision in the government and we are going to press ahead.”

As word of the government’s retreat spread through Piata Victoriei — the square outside the main government building that has been the center of the protests — a subdued wave of celebration passed through the throng of more than 100,000 people, mixing with grim determination to continue the fight, if needed.

“I feel a bit better, but it isn’t enough,” said Mihai Saru, 20, a student. “They lost our trust when they released this emergency ordinance in the night. How do we know it won’t happen again in two weeks, a month? But tonight is a little victory.”

Chants mixed with blaring horns as protesters listened to the prime minister’s announcement on their phones. “Thieves!” many yelled. In a show of patriotic solidarity, the crowd broke into the national anthem, but the demonstrations continued into the night.

“This doesn’t change anything,” said Diana Popescu, 42, an economist. “They still lied. This government isn’t honest. We don’t want to be represented by a government of liars.”

The combination of the mass protests, which showed no signs of abating, and growing international condemnation seems to have weakened the government’s resolve. Even the Romanian Orthodox Church, normally a solid supporter of the government, criticized the decree.

“The United States is deeply concerned about the government of Romania’s recent measures that undermine rule of law and weaken accountability for financial and corruption-related crimes,” Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, said on Thursday.

The first cracks in the government’s resolve appeared Saturday afternoon, when Liviu Dragnea, the president of the governing Social Democratic Party and its most powerful figure, told a local news outlet that the decree could well be withdrawn in an attempt to avert civil conflict. Mr. Dragnea said he was not sure he could “keep in check” his own party’s supporters.

“Romania needs peace and stability in order to move towards prosperity, development and democracy,” he said.

Mr. Dragnea is ineligible to serve as prime minister because he was convicted last year of electoral fraud, an offense for which he received a two-year suspended sentence. He is also facing a trial on abuse-of-power charges tracing back to his time as a local council president in a poor county southwest of Bucharest.

The governing party, which won a decisive victory in December, assumed office in January and quickly proposed a law to pardon those serving sentences of five years or less for certain crimes, a move the party said was intended to ease prison overcrowding.

It was unclear whether Mr. Dragnea himself would be in line for such a pardon, which would make him eligible again to be prime minister, but many on the streets believed he would have been. It was enough to inspire protests the past two Sundays.

The current round of protests began late Tuesday night when the government surprised opponents by enacting an “emergency decree,” which does not require a parliamentary vote. Among other things, the decree decriminalized cases of official misconduct in which the financial damage is less than 200,000 lei, or about $47,000.

There was no question that this would have benefited Mr. Dragnea — saving him from a potential prison sentence — as the charges against him involved an amount of money below that limit.

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Within an hour of the decree’s enactment on Tuesday, despite the late hour, more than 10,000 protesters spontaneously gathered in Piata Victoriei, or Victory Square.

By Wednesday, the protests had spread across the country. Hundreds of thousands of people denounced what they viewed as a humiliating setback in the country’s fight to end endemic government corruption.

“In Romania, the political cleavage is not left against right, as it is in Western Europe,” said Sorin Ionita, a political analyst for the Expert Forum in Bucharest, a research group. “It is corruption versus anti-corruption.”

Romania’s president, Klaus Iohannis, of the opposition National Liberal Party, had joined one of the early protests and later asked the country’s constitutional court to rule on the decree.

The emergency decree was to take effect at midnight on Friday. The constitutional court said it would try to issue its ruling before then, but the looming deadline added energy to the protests.

Under Romanian law, if the measure had taken effect even briefly, the cases against Mr. Dragnea and others charged with offenses covered by the decree could have been invalidated. Even if the government later rescinded the decree, the exonerations might have remained in effect.

Laura Codruta Kovesi, who runs Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate, said Friday that the government’s decree would have crippled the work of her department, which has brought thousands of cases, including some against top figures in the government.

“The Romanian criminal code has 440 articles,” Ms. Kovesi said. “Overnight, they decided to change three articles involving three crimes: abuse of power, negligence in office and conflict of interest. Such crimes are usually committed only by high officials, high civil servants.”

The key casualty, she said, was the concept that no one is above the law.

“In my discussions with my colleagues in other prosecutor offices in other countries,” Ms. Kovesi said, “I would like to be able to use the present tense, not past tense — what we have, not what we used to have.”

Some believe the government will not be able to recover from the setback without the resignations of top officials.

“Even if they withdraw the decree, they must change ministers,” Mr. Ionita, the analyst, said. “This could have been discussed reasonably two weeks ago, but now it is too late. They don’t have the credibility to discuss it anymore.”

Although the protests were aimed at the decree, they raised broader questions about the nation’s identity.

“It’s not about an ordinance,” said Manuel Costescu, a member of Parliament from the Union to Save Romania, a new party focused on anti-corruption efforts. “It’s about questioning our identity. What kind of country do we want to live in? Is it a nest of thieves or is it a European country?”

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