The Romanian president and the prime minister spoke publicly about their negotiation and made it clear

that we will not have a procedure as the Comission asked for. How do you comment on this? Mark Gray: I think the Commision has set out its position quite clearly. It is the Commision's role under the MCV to give its view. That's what we have done. Obviously we will make our views known on various stages in the procedure, like today, but also in the context of the reports. Ultimately is for the romanian authorities to take their decisions and decide how they move forward and we will make our assesments in due course. As for today, obviously we had the anouncement of the CSM on how they intend to conduct the procedure. For the European Commision the CSM has a clear role in the process under romanian law: to give a considered opinion on the appointments. The CE believes it must be given the oportunity to discharge this responsibility. The procedure gives that posibility, we believe that must be done and then it will be for the president to make the next step. I think in terms of the timing - we have obviously a debate in Romania on this. I think what the CSM has decided to date is very similar to a time frame set out in november. I think whats important is those sides that you have a situation where decisions are not being unnecesarily delayed, but at the same time that all actors in the process have sufficient time to do their job. A balance is need to be struck. CSM has given its position today, that's very similar to what the timing was for november. We hope that the procees will move forward on that basis Do you have any comments on the proposal? The names proposed by the prime minister Victor Ponta? Mark Gray: Not at all. We've never commented on the names and we don't intend to start now. Since the last time we spoke Daniel Morar has quit his job. How do you see this change? Mark Gray: Again, i think that falls into the category of not commenting on specific names or positions. We haven't done this in reports and we don't think its apropriate to do so. The day on his announcement we didn't comment and i think we continue to take that position. Last week we saw some public comments from the US and UK embassies. Both saluted the solution set up by the prime minister and the president. How does the CE see this positioning? Mark Gray: We leave other actors to make their statement. Again, the CE has set out its views very clearly on the need for the open and transparent

procedure. We've said that out many times. We leave others, the US administration and the UK to take their position. I'm not going to comment on their comments. You stress out every time the need for a transparent and clear procedure, but what we saw in the last week was exactly the opposite. We haven't seen any procedure, we just saw a few names out of nowhere put on the table of the CSM. What is the feeling there in the CE? Do you feel ultimately that this procedure is not at all as you wished? Mark Gray: Let's be clear. The procedure that we recomended, and if you remember the long intense debates with the minister in last autumn, the procedure we recomended was not followed. I think that has to be said clearly. I think what we focus now on is moving forward, we have an expresion in english: "You should not cry over spilt milk". I think is important and there is no point looking back. What is important - and that why we are saying the things we are saying on the CSM - is that a proper procedure giving the CSM the opportunity to look at these candidates with due process, is followed. That's what we are focused on at the moment. We can spend many hours talking what should or should not have been done in the past, but we are where we are. We are now focusing on using what is before us in the best possible way.