Emma Nicholson's report on the situation of the institutionalised children in Romania cannot prevent other chapters of the EU accession negotiations from being opened, even though the report is endorsed by the European Parliament, Hildegard Puwak, European Integration minister, said on Monday.
It is not up to Parliament to rule about negotiations with the applicant states, but to the Council of Ministers within the European Commission, according to the Integration minister.
Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne, European Parliament's rapporteur for Romania, said she would suggest in her report on Romania's progress currently in the making that negotiations with Romania should be suspended unless the situation of the orphan children was not duly addressed.
She said that Romania does not meet the political EU accession criterion (about democratic institutions stability, observance of human and minorities rights), as the situation of the institutionalised children is a human rights infringement.
Puwak on Monday told a news conference that Emma Nicholson's draft report was "just one of those many reports" which the European Commission and European Parliament structures make about Romania.
"We take criticism, but we also have to call the attention to any inconsistencies in the report," Puwak specified. Mediafax
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