We reprint here an open letter from Norica Nicolai to Frans Timmermans, European Commissioner and First Vice-President of the European Commission
Who threatens Romania with activating Article 7? With this question, I will open my letter, writes Norica Nicolai.
First, the rules of integrity of the European Commissioners have recently been changed for you and your colleagues in the Commission so that you can be a candidate in the European elections, which is a questionable decision. I would like, following your long letter to the media and the Romanian institutions, to know the answer to the question above, mentioning the quality on which you will respond: Frans Timmermans the candidate or Frans Timmermans the Commissioner.
In fact, I think it is necessary to clarify this issue. In the Guidelines on ethical standards for the participation of the members of the EC in the election campaign, adopted on 6 February 2019, European Commissioners have a series of obligations in order to distance the electoral discourse from that of the institution, and to avoid the use of the Commission’s resources in its own electoral interest. If there was a European Commission ”rule of law”, you would currently be in a gray area. However, unfortunately, you have not provided a “nuclear solution” for this kind of situation.
Secondly, your immature gesture reminds me of another declaration made in the election campaign by another desperate politician trying to gain easy votes – David Cameron, whose populist and irresponsible referendum has led his own country and the entire European Union into a blockage out from which we can’t get out for many years. Didn’t you draw any lessons from that?
To conclude, because I know you are busy winning notoriety for you and your party, and you do not have time to understand the situation in Romania (you never had time, why would you have now), I want you to ask yourself when looking in the mirror: when will you stop playing with Member States without any responsibility, when will you stop this attitude of superiority and self-sufficiency specific to people ascended on a pedestal? When will you try to understand that the European Union is “Unity in diversity” and is a Union of citizens, not of political families, not of double standards, not of developed countries against the less developed ones? Stop this behavior before you destroy what remains of this generous project – the European Union. Do not bury it!
The Author of this letter is Norica Nicolai, Romanian MEP
