Romanian orphans create row in EU

Written by Mihaela Gherghisan
Wednesday, 26 April 2006

A group of MEPs have spoken against the current Romanian international adoptions law that bans the possibility for foreign families to adopt orphans unless they are the biological grandparents.

Charles Tannock, a British conservative, Jean Marie Cavada and Frederique Ries belonging to the European liberals (ALDE) are criticizing Romania now for having this law although it has been in place since 1 January 2005.

They agreed with the first step of halting the international adoptions in 2001 due to high corruption problems but the law, passed as a consequence of the ban, is very wrong on these MEPs opinion.

The action was actually initiated some time ago by Jean Marie Cavada. He addressed a petition to the Romanian authorities signed by 100 people in and outside the EU Parliament with the aim of modifying the legislation.

Bucharest has been for years in the spotlight of EU Institutions, and especially of the EU Parliament because of the international adoptions situation and after much pressure from Brussels it introduced the moratorium in 2001.

The controversial law, which was enacted in 2005, was actually drawn up then in consultations with Brussels and EU member states.

The three MEPs mentioned above say that this was a wrong decision although it was well intentioned.

They also drew fire against the former rapporteur for Romania, their colleague Emma Nicholson that made the adoption ban possible. She also threatened Romania that unless it passes the current law, the EU accession would be suspended.

Charles Tannock admitted for EUexpands that he didn't know about the threat (which happened in 2003) and added that since there is no common EU regulation on the matter the European states should decide on sovereign manner on the legislation.

Jean Marie Cavada pleaded for a more flexible and enlarged framework that would allow at least the solving of the cases of adoption remained in the pipeline since before the ban introduction.

The current debate is stirred by the recent negative reply that all the pipeline families received form the Romanian authorities.

These families, which over the years had established relations with the children they wanted to adopt, are forbidden any contact with those now.

Theodora Bertzi, the director of the National Adoptions Office in Romania, has explained that every case was humanly treated and perfectly falls under the legislation, an argument not accepted either by the families or by the mentioned MEPs.