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Tag: france elections

  • Reactions to the French presidential elections

    Reactions to the French presidential elections

    Emmanuel Macron, the candidate of the
    centrist En Marche movement, won the first round of the presidential elections
    in France with almost 24% of the votes. In the second round on the 7th
    of May, he will face the National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who won almost
    22% of the votes.




    For the European Union, which is following
    the crucial French elections with apprehension, Le Pen’s advance into the
    second round is bad news, given her far-right and anti-European views. The good
    news is that both the traditional right and left in France will support Macron
    in the second round. Both the candidate of the right wing and former prime
    minister in Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration, Francois Fillon, and the
    candidate of the left, Benoit Hamon, said they would support Emmanuel Macron.
    Also, France’s biggest trade union called for a pro-Macron vote on the 7th
    of May.




    I want to be the president of
    patriots against the threat of nationalists, said the young French politician
    after the polls closed. In one year, we have changed the face of French
    politics, he added, promising to be the voice of hope for France and Europe.
    Europe’s biggest publications give him the biggest chance of winning to become
    the youngest president in France’s history.




    Aged
    39, Macron had a meteoric rise in French politics. Between 2014 and 2016, he
    served as economy minister in Francois Hollande’s administration, but remained
    politically unaffiliated, and has never run for public office before. As an
    economy minister, he drew criticism from the socialists due to his rather
    right-wing, market-oriented measures. He resigned last year to be able to enter
    the presidential race as a representative of his own newly founded centrist
    movement, an entity somewhere between a political party and a grassroots
    movement. Macron is not an anti-system politician, but has styled himself as
    someone coming from outside the system.




    Coupled
    with the stinging defeat of the traditional left and right, the results point
    to a change of paradigm in French politics. These elections also mark two
    painful firsts for the mainstream French political system: it is for the first
    time in 60 years that the incumbent president has not run for reelection, and
    also for the first time that the candidates of the conservative right and the
    socialist left have not made it to the second round. After May 7th,
    France will most probably remain a pillar of the European project, but
    something fundamental in its internal political system will most likely change.



  • 2 March 2017

    2 March 2017

    European funds. The main priority of the Romanian government
    is to attract European funds worth 5.2 billion euros by the end of the year,
    said the minister for regional development and deputy prime minister Sevil
    Shhaideh. Romania lost 3.5 billion euros of the entire amount of European funds
    it was entitled to between 2007 and 2013 and has so far managed to attract
    about 1% of the 30 billion euros available to it in the 2014-2020 period. The
    average absorption rate at European level for this financing period stands at
    3%.




    EU. Romania has the extraordinary opportunity to take
    part, for the first time since it joined the European Union, in the reform of
    the 27 member bloc which must now lay out its vision depending on its citizens’
    expectations and the political decisions of the member states, said the European
    commissioner for regional policy Corina Cretu. The president of the European
    Commission Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday launched for public debate a White
    Paper on the future of the Union after UK’s exit. The document lays down the
    main challenges and opportunities for Europe in the next decade, providing five
    possible scenarios for the future of a 27-member European Union.




    Unemployment.
    The unemployment rate in January in Romania stood at 5.4%, which is 0.1% lower
    than in the previous month, thus reaching the lowest level since 2008,
    according to the latest data published by the National Institute for
    Statistics. According to Eurostat, the amount of government funds allocated by
    Romania to support public policies to boost employment stands at 0.2% of the
    GDP, which is the lowest level in the European Union.




    Brexit. The House of Lords in the British Parliament has
    voted to guarantee the rights of the 3 million EU citizens living in the UK and
    allow them to stay in the country after Brexit. The vote in the House of Lords
    is the first defeat suffered by the Brexit bill proposed by the government.
    However, this amendment can still be overturned by MPs when the bill returns to
    the House of Commons. The bill gives prime minister Theresa May the authority to
    trigger Brexit under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and to start official
    negotiations. The amendment passed by the Lords call on the government to set
    out proposals on how to guarantee the rights of EU nationals within three
    months of triggering Article 50. Theresa May says she will start the exit
    process before the end of March.




    France elections. The European
    Parliament today voted to lift the parliamentary immunity of the French
    far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen for tweeting pictures of
    atrocities committed by the Islamic State. In a separate case, she is
    investigated for allegations that she misused EU funds to pay aides. According
    to the latest poll, Le Pen would win the first round of the presidential
    elections in France on the 23rd of April. The centrist candidate
    Emmanuel Macron, a former economy minister under the Socialist president
    Francois Hollande, is in second place in the polls, followed by the candidate
    of the French right Francois Fillon, who is facing a formal investigation over
    a fake job scandal involving his wife and who has to appear before magistrates
    on the 15th of March.




    Football. Dinamo
    Bucharest face ACS Poli Timisoara in the final of the Romanian football League
    Cup on the 20th of May. On Wednesday in the second leg of the
    semifinals, Dinamo defeated Steaua Bucharest 3-1, after a 4-1 win in the first
    leg. On Tuesday, Poli Timisoara defeated ASA Targu Mures 3-1 in the second leg,
    after a 4-2 win in the first leg. Re-established in 2014, the League Cup is a
    competition for the teams in the top division, while the Romanian Cup is open
    to all football clubs irrespective of what division they are playing in.