​Romania's nominee for European Commission Rovana Plumb invited to exceptional hearings over wealth statement in EP

Romanian Social Democrat (PSD) Rovana Plumb, who has been nominated by Romania for a position as European Commissioner, is invited to „exceptional” hearing in the judicial committee of the European Parliament on Thursday. She is due to clarify information in her wealth statement, where it reads that she has a RON 800,000 loan from a person – the same amount that she has lent her party.

Some members of the EP committee have said there were differences between the wealth statement she submitted in Romania and the one submitted to the European Parliament. A potential conflict of interest is considered.

Another Romanian MEP on Wednesday wrote on Facebook that Plumb did not receive green light from the EP committee due to the contradictory information in her statements.

In her wealth statement, Plumb appears to have a RON800,000 loan from Elena Loghin which she contracted in 2019 and is due to retun by 2021. On the other hand, the PSD representative appears to have lent the party by the same amount for the European elections campaign this year, in which she ran as top of the list for her party.

• In Romania, the Radio Free Europe website has reported that the Electoral Authority has rejected a complaint submitted by the PSD party for not settling spending for the EP election campaign. The party has threatened the authority representatives with criminal complaints unless the money is settled. The source reports that because of the dispute Rovana Plumb would not be able to recover the RON 800,000 loan to her party, as the Electoral Authority has decided not to provide several million RON to cover for the spending due to irregularities in how PSD filed the necessary documentation. – The Radio Free Europe report (in Romanian)