After 20 years of being an active politician, Adrian Severin could be forced to put an end to a career, which has been a blend of controversial moves and competent public appearances that created for him the image of a clever politician, an ideologist with a leftist leaning, but especially one who embraced European values. Having entered the political scene immediately after 1990, when he was 36, and first becoming part of the government as a secretary of state in Petre Roman's government, in the team of young promising professors promoted by the premier at the time, Severin's crowning political achievement in Romania was when he became foreign minister in 1996. He later received European recognition when he was elected as European deputy, as well as by his appointment in 2002 to the Convention on the Future of Europe, which put together the European Constitution (the current Lisbon Treaty).

The scandal started by The Sunday Times, which accuses him, as well as two other European MPs, of claiming money to modify European legislation, could be fatal to the now 57 year-old politician. He has been summoned to Brussels for explanations, the Romanian National Anticorruption Department (DNA) started an investigation on its own initiative, and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) is examining the pieces of evidence generously made available by the British publication.

Severin, who is a top member of PSD (opposition Social Democratic Party) and heads the group of PSD deputies in the European Parliament, says he is not guilty and that he will not resign from the Strasbourg-based institution as his colleagues accused of similar actions- Austrian conservative Ernst Strasser and Slovenian socialist Zoran Thaler - did. Yesterday Severin suspended himself only from PSD, but the involvement of the name of the party in this scandal is extremely damaging because this