BUCHAREST (AFP) -- Overcoming reluctant magistrates and disputes within the ruling coalition, Romanian Justice Minister Monica Macovei has forced through judicial reforms that are crucial to getting her country into the European Union.

The European Commission is to decide tomorrow whether Romania and neighboring Bulgaria can join the EU on January 1, 2007 as scheduled, or must wait another year.

Attacked on several occasions by Bucharest newspapers, Macovei, a former lawyer specialized in human rights, has gotten results in the fight against corruption. Several members of Parliament and former or current ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister George Copos and the former Social-Democrat prime minister Adrian Nastase, feature on a list of "big fish" whom Brussels has wanted to see brought to account, as proof that Bucharest is willing to "do some cleaning up."

Thirteen top Romanian officials have been prosecuted over the past six months, including four ministers and state secretaries and nine former or current members of Parliament, "charged with causing serious damage to Romania's image," according to Daniel Morar, chief prosecutor of the government's Anti-Corruption Bureau (DNA).

"We had to break through a wall of indifference to be able to investigate crimes committed by MPs," Morar told AFP.

"Following the fall of communism in 1989, many Romanian high officials were pointed at and criticized by the press for their involvement in shady deals. But they were never punished due to a lack of political will," Macovei told AFP.