The Role Of The Cooperation And Verification Mechanism In Consolidating The European Values In The Romanian Territorial Collectivities

Understood as forms of democratic organization of the State in social, cultural, administrative and financial fields, the administrative decentralization and local autonomy should promote and articulate the relationship between state, society and economy. In this space of networking and concerted action among different stakeholders, citizen engagement, transparency, subsidiarity and other European values must converge. In light of these structural changes produced in the state that must meet new social demands, territorial collectivities face a series of new skills, roles and responsibilities. The aim of this article is to analyze the role of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) and the European values promoted by the state and reflected at the local public administration level. Some of these values could be identified as the following in the Romanian territorial collectivities: legality of administration, the principle of reliability, the guarantee of fundamental rights and freedoms and equality before the Law. The CVM is a tool to maintain the reform momentum in Romania and Bulgaria and prevent reversal of the rule of law reforms enacted during the EU accession negotiations. Every six months, the Council issues a CVM report for Bulgaria and Romania, evaluating progress on the established benchmarks and flagging the most pressing issues that should be addressed before the next report.