German newspaper: Nationalist and post-communist forces target popular Romanian mayor

Timișoara's German mayor, Dominic Fritz, faces a concerted effort by nationalist and post-communist parties to remove him from office, according to a report by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). The article details how the AUR and PSD parties have introduced a retroactive clause into a law on integrity and incompatibilities. This change, FAZ argues, moves Romania further away from European standards and risks undermining Fritz's mandate. This legal maneuver is particularly significant as Romania needs to adopt or reform six laws by the end of August to receive outstanding EU funds, totaling over five billion euros. The "integrity law" alone is crucial for a 770 million euro tranche, a substantial sum for a country with the EU's largest budget deficit. FAZ questions whether this political maneuver, which has largely gone unnoticed in Europe, is a "farce." The informal alliance between AUR and PSD appears to be betting that the European Commission will overlook this action. However, Christian Democrats and liberals in the European Parliament are now calling for hundreds of millions of euros destined for Bucharest to be blocked. Dominic Fritz, a former chief of staff to German President Horst Köhler, is a well-known figure in Romania. He learned Romanian fluently, was elected mayor of Timișoara in 2020, and re-elected four years later. He also leads the pro-European USR party, which advocates for a strong fight against corruption. The FAZ article notes that Fritz's mayoral term could be torpedoed if the Parliament approves the amendment to the integrity law, a situation that could lead Romania deeper into corruption.