The ‘Initiative Romania’ civic movement has asked the U.S. State Department to suspend Liviu Dragnea’s visa and entry into the U.S., invoking Proclamation 7750 issued on 12 January 2004. “Liviu Dragnea has become a grave and imminent threat to democracy, rule of law, the security of Romania and of our EU and NATO allies,” according to the representatives of the civic movement.
“The Initiative Romania civic movement has asked the United States Department of State to suspend the visa and entry into the U.S. of Mr Liviu Dragnea, President of the Social Democratic Party and Speaker of the House, based on Proclamation 7750, Section 1 c), paragraphs 3, 4 and 6, issued by the U.S. President on 12 January 2014, and of Regulation 22 CFR 41,122,” Initiative Romania points out in a communique.
According to the civic movement’s representatives, Proclamation 7750 stipulates that in light of “the serious negative effects that corruption of public institutions has on the United States efforts to promote security and to strengthen democratic institutions and free market systems,” as well as “the importance to the United States and the international community of fighting corruption,” the entry into the U.S. is to be suspended in the case of officials whose “misappropriation of public funds or interference with the judicial, electoral, or other public processes has or had serious adverse effects on the national interests of the United States.”
Moreover, the Proclamation defines the serious adverse effects on U.S. national interests as meaning “serious adverse effects on the international economic activity of U.S. businesses, U.S. foreign assistance goals, the security of the United States against transnational crime and terrorism, or the stability of democratic institutions and nations.”
“Mr Liviu Dragnea fully meets the criteria stipulated by Proclamation 7750, being convicted, indicted or criminally probed in 4 dossiers (3 in Romania and one in Brazil) for electoral fraud, embezzlement of European public funds, money laundering and abuse of office. Likewise, Mr Liviu Dragnea is the initiator of an assault – that started in January 2017 – against the rule of law and the independent judiciary, assault that endangers the stability of both Romanian and of democratic institutions, and the probing of transnational criminality, especially cross-border corruption and terrorism,” the movement’s representatives claim.
Initiative Romania considers that Liviu Dragnea “has become a grave and imminent threat to democracy, rule of law, the security of Romania and of our EU and NATO allies.”
“He must be given a clear signal that Romania must remain on a democratic path and that the strategic partnership with the United States is based on common democratic values and on the full observance of rule of law standards. The hijacking of Romania’s European and Euro-Atlantic path by a defendant that has criminal interests that go against the interest of more than 20 million Romanian citizens must be given an unequivocal and final response both in Romania and abroad,” the Initiative Romania representatives add.
