Radio România Internațional

Tag: Viorica

September 18, 2019 UPDATE

ADMISSION Romania’s constitutional Court (CCR) on Wednesday partially admitted a
government notification, which signaled a legal conflict of constitutional
nature as the country’s right-wing president Klaus Iohannis refused to appoint
the interim ministers proposed by the Social-Democratic Prime Minister Viorica
Dancila after their partner, ALDE, had left the ruling coalition last month. The
court has also ruled that the president had to sign a decree on the resignation
of Justice Minister Ana Birchall as part of a government reshuffle decided by
the Social Democratic Party (PSD). According to the court, it is the Prime
Minister’s prerogatives to sack ministers and appoint interim substitutes but
the president must sign the decrees in this respect. In another development,
according to the court, Prime Minister Dancila must appear before Parliament
for a confidence vote for the government team after ALDE’s withdrawal from the
ruling coalition, which altered the political structure of the Executive. Shortly
after the Constitutional Court decision, Prime Minister Dancila said the
president committed an abuse violating the Constitution with cynicism and carelessness
causing a government crisis. Dancila went on to say that she would go to
Parliament with a new list of ministers and would unflinchingly ask a
confidence vote for the fresh cabinet. In turn, president Iohannis has said in
a press release that he will make his decisions on applying the Constitutional
Court ruling after the CCR motivation has been published.

COOPERATION The Romanian-Polish cooperation developed through a
strategic partnership, which is strong, viable and future-oriented, Romanian
Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said in Bucharest on Wednesday in a joint
statement with her Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki. The Romanian capital
city hosted the second round of bilateral inter-governmental talks after the
one in Warsaw, last year. The present round of talks took place against the
background of celebrating a decade of strategic partnership, three decades of
democracy and a century of diplomatic relations. The progress made in the
cooperation between the two countries was being assessed, and new objectives
were set during the talks. Several memorandums of understanding were signed for
infrastructure, transport, energy, communication and digitization,
entrepreneurship, the management of EU funds and cooperation between the police
academies of the two countries. The Polish Prime Minister was also received by
Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday.

BILL A bill on the taxation of
special pension benefits, introduced by the Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici,
was passed by the Senate on Wednesday after being approved by the budget
committee on Tuesday. The document concerns a 30% tax rate of special pensions
ranging between approx. 1,480 euro and 2,115 euro, and a 50% tax rate on pensions above
this threshold.Senators also decided that country presidents’ emoluments in excess of
roughly 1,480 euro should be subject to taxation. The bill is going to be sent
to the Chamber of Deputies, the decision making body in this respect.

(translated by bill)

18 September 2019
August 22, 2019 UPDATE

CANDIDACY The National Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party,
number one in the government coalition in Bucharest, is to convene on Friday to
validate the candidacy of incumbent Prime Minister Viorica Dancila for the
presidential election this autumn. The country’s president Klaus Iohannis has
also announced his intention to run for the presidential seat. Iohannis is
backed by the National Liberal Party, the main opposition party in Romania.
Another candidate is Dan Barna, head of the USR-PLUS Alliance, also in
opposition, as well as Calin Popescu Tariceanu leader of ALDE, the second party
in the ruling coalition.

DAY On Friday Romania marks 75 years since the
country’s former king, Mihai 1st, decided to arrest Marshal Ion Antonescu, the
head of the pro-German government in Bucharest taking Romania out of the Axis.
According to historians, the king’s decision to join the Allied Powers
shortened the war in Europe by six months saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
Three years later when the country was under the Soviet occupation and led by a
puppet government, the king was forced to abdicate and go into exile. The
former king returned to Romania after the anti-communist revolution of 1989 and
died two years ago at the age of 96.

SURVEY Students from Eastern Europe in schools across England and
Scotland have been facing an increasing wave of racism and xenophobia, shows a
survey conducted by the Strathclyde University in Glasgow. The Brexit
referendum and the anti-migration discourse of some politicians have largely contributed
to this phenomenon in the past three years. According to the study, quoted by
Radio Romania correspondent, 77% of the students interviewed have confessed
they suffered in a way or another from acts of racism, xenophobia and
harassment, while half of them say that such abuses have increased after the 2016
Brexit referendum. The interviewees say they have been victims of verbal abuse
in the street, transport means or even on school premises and some of them have
accused the teaching staff of having ignored the phenomenon. The survey, which
was conducted between October 2016 and May 2018, involved over 1,000 students
with ages between 12 and 18 mostly from countries like Romania, Poland and
Lithuania who lived in Britain for at least three years.

(translated by bill)

22 August 2019
July 4, 2019 UPDATE

4th JULY ‘Romania’s strategic priority is and will remain a strong
transatlantic relation’, Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said on Thursday
during the reception offered by the US embassy in Bucharest on the occasion of
the country’s 243rd anniversary. Also attending the event Romanian
Prime Minister Viorica Dancila has conveyed a message of congratulations as
well as wishes of peace and prosperity to all the US citizens. According to a
government communiqué, Romania has confirmed its statute of a trustworthy
partner of the United States and also a staunch ally in ensuring peace as well
as regional and global security, being known for its contribution, the fifth in
size, to NATO’s Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan. At the same time, the government
in Bucharest appreciates and warmly hails the role of the Romanian community in
the USA as an element of rapprochement, cohesion and solid inter-human, social
and cultural bond. The US celebrates its Independence Day on July 4th,
marking the day when back in 1773 13 British colonies proclaimed their
independence from the British crown to found the United States of America.

TENNIS Romania’s best tennis player Simona Halep will be up against Victoria
Azarenka of Belarus on Friday in the third round of the Grand Slam tournament
in Wimbledon. Halep has outperformed another Romanian challenger, Mihaela
Buzarnescu in the second round. Also on Thursday, another player from Romania, Monica
Niculescu was defeated by Elise Mertens of Belgium 7-5, 6-0 in the same
competition. On the same day a pair made up of Horia Tecau of Romania and Jean Julien
Rojer of the Netherlands qualified for the round of 32 of the men’s doubles
after a 6-4, 6-3, 6-1 win against Italians Marco Cecchinato and Andreas Seppi.

COURT Romania’s Constitutional Court (RCC) has postponed for July 10th
the ruling over the motions tabled by the opposition Save Romania Union and the
National Liberal Party and by president Iohannis concerning several Parliament
amendments to the Penal Code and Penal Procedure Codes. The RCC judges have
repeatedly postponed the ruling on the aforementioned amendments, which, according
to the opposition, are contradicting not only the rule of law by weakening
Romania’s penal policy and encouraging crime but also the Constitution. In
turn, president Iohannis believes the amendments to the Penal Procedure Code are
infringing on the Constitution and the principle of bicameralism. The controversial
articles include the decriminalization of the abuse of office, and reducing the
statute of limitations and term of parole. The two projects were endorsed by
the decision-making Chamber of Deputies in April.

NEVERSEA As of Thursday, the city of Constanta, on the Romanian Black
Sea Coast, plays venue for the Neversea Festival, the largest music festival in
Europe held on a beach. 150 famous artists will perform for four days on the Modern
beach, before an audience of some 200,000 people. The list of guests includes
Afrojack, G-Eazy, Jessy J, DJ Snake, Sean Paul, Lost Frequencies, Kadebostany,
Salvatore Ganacci and Dub FX. Special security measures have been put in place
to ensure the smooth running of the event. This year the festival’s budget
amounts to some 9 million Euros.

4 July 2019
April 12, 2019

TALKS There is a need for a referendum on justice and this is
going to happen on May 26th, concurrently with the elections for the
European Parliament, Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said today at the end of
his talks on this issue with Parliament parties. In his opinion, the Romanians are
afraid that ruling Social Democratic Party is going to dominate the country’s
judicial system. The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats had already made public
their decision to boycott the referendum talks. On Thursday, upon talks with
opposition parties, PNL, USR PMP, with UDMR as well as the group of national
minorities, other than the Hungarian one, president Iohannis said the
participants endorsed the idea of a referendum. According to Iohannis, the
Romanians want a justice system outside the political sphere of influence. The aforementioned
talks have been staged against the background of frequent legislative
amendments initiated by the ruling PSD-ALDE coalition, which attracted a lot of
heat from Romania’s European partners. During the referendum people will have
to express their will on several issues, such as banning amnesty and pardon for
corruption crimes as well as emergency ordinances for offenses, penalties and
judicial organization.

MEETING The European Commission has approved all the projects the
Romanian government submitted, but I believe more could have been done as there
is more money to access, the European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina
Cretu said in Bucharest on Friday. The EU official attended the informal
meeting of the ministers in charge of European funds against the background of Romania’s
holding the EU rotating presidency. In another development Rovana Plumb,
Minister for the European Funds, said the relation the authorities in Bucharest is having with the
European Commission is a normal one based on dialogue so that the European
money Romania deserves may reach this country. Among other things, the meeting
agenda also includes investment priorities envisaged by the Cohesion Policy for
the period between 2021 and 2027. Romania’s presidency of the EU Council is
unfolding under the motto, ‘Cohesion, a common European Value’ laying emphasis
on the unity between the EU members and the importance of reducing economic,
social and territorial differences at the EU level.

SUMMIT The city of Dubrovnik in Croatia is playing venue for the 16+1
Summit bringing together leaders from countries in Central, Eastern Europe and from
China. Romania is being represented by Prime Minister Viorica Dancila who is
expected to deliver a speech and participate in a ceremony occasioned by the
signing of a memorandum of understanding over the setting up of a group of
experts for promoting unrestricted trade between Romania and China, the signing
of an accord over the export of bees as well a cooperation agreement between
the Chinese Bank of Development and Eximbank. On Thursday, the Romanian Prime
Minister met her counterparts from Slovenia and Croatia.

INVESTMENT According to Romania’s Central Bank, direct foreign
investment in Romania rose by 47% in the first two months of this year up to
one billion Euros as compared to the 704 million Euros in the similar period of
2018. 935 new enterprises with foreign capital were registered in the first two
months of the year, their number being on the rise against the same period last
year. The Netherlands, Austria and Germany are the main providers of foreign
capital.

EXERCISE On Thursday night Bucharest played venue for an exercise involving
the intervention of rescue teams to remove the effects of several explosions
allegedly taking place in the city’s underground railway. The exercise in
Bucharest was part of an ampler multinational military-medical drill, the
biggest in the history of the North-Atlantic Alliance. The drill has been
staged by the NATO Center of Excellence for Military Medicine, Romanian Chief
of Staff and the Medical Department of the Romanian Defence Ministry.

(translated by bill)

12 April 2019
April 3, 2019 UPDATE

STATEMENT Romania must urgently return to the reform
process, which means steps forward and not backward, and refrain from any
measure that could lead to regress, the First Vice-President of the European
Commission, Frans Timmermans, told a news conference in Brussels in the
aftermath of the College of Commissioners. Recently the European Commission has
repeatedly announced its concern regarding the latest developments in the
process of implementing the rule of law in Romania. According to the community
executive, both the content and the procedures of the latest changes in the
process of implementing the rule of law by means of emergency decrees without talks
with justice representatives and those directly interested seem to run counter
the recommendations within the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. Prime
Minister Viorica Dancila on Wednesday said she was surprised by Timmermans’ statement through which he cautioned the Romanian government not to take any
action that affects the judiciary and announced her intention to have talks
with the EU official. According to the Romanian Minster of Justice, Tudorel
Toader, the process of endorsing justice laws in Romania does not need approval
from the European Commission. Opposition parties in Romania consider the
European Commission’s latest cautioning on the situation of the country’s legal
system as ‘the toughest reaction in the past two years.’

RULING The Court of Cassation and
Justice in Romania on Wednesday ruled to lift the measure of judicial control
in the case of the former head of Romania’s main Anti-corruption Agency (DNA),
Laura Codruta Kovesi. The measure was taken a week ago by the prosecutors of the
Department for Investigating Offences in Justice in a file where Kovesi had
been accused of abuse of office, bribery and false testimony. The court’s
ruling in the case involving Kovesi is definitive. Also on Wednesday, the
European Commission and European Parliament reiterated their support for
Kovesi, who is running for the position of European Chief Prosecutor,
underlining that it is important for the former DNA head to be able to submit
her candidature in Brussels. Kovesi enjoys support from the Community
Legislature for this position.

CALL Embassies of 12 states, Romania’s
international allies and partners, have called on the government in Bucharest
in a joint statement to refrain from amendments that might weaken the rule of
law and Romania’s ability to fight corruption and crime. The signatories,
Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway,
the Netherlands, the USA and Sweden, have voiced their deep concern about the
integrity of Romania’s legal system, which has been shaken by unpredictable changes,
which do not boost Romania’s efforts to consolidate progress in terms of
justice. The ambassadors of the 12 states have added that the emergency decrees
could impact on the independence of the judiciary, which would undermine the
Romanians’ and partners’ trust in the justice system and in Romania’s
government as well. In the opinion of the partner countries, it is essential
that Romania take into account recommendations coming from the Council of
Europe’s bodies such as the Venice Commission and GRECO as well as from the
European Parliament the EU Council, from the European Commission’s latest
report within the Mechanism of Cooperation and Verification to be able to ensure
an efficient, transparent and impartial justice.

(translated by
bill)

3 April 2019
March 29, 2019 UPDATE

MEETING A new meeting brought together in
Snagov, close to Bucharest, on Friday representatives of Romania, Bulgaria,
Greece and Serbia. Prime ministers Viorica Dancila, Boiko Borisov, Alexis
Tsipras and Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic held talks on the headway made
in several joint regional projects in the fields of transportation,
infrastructure and energy. Romanian capital city Bucharest also played venue
for the fifth meeting of the High Level Cooperation Council between Romania and
Bulgaria. The tight partnership with a view to strengthening security, economic
development and the region’s connectivity was also tackled and upon the joint
session, the governments of the two countries signed several cooperation documents
in various fields of activity. According to Prime Minister Dancila, these are
referring to cooperation between the police forces of the two states in
emergency situations, to ways of boosting small and medium-sized enterprises as
well as streamlining the field of transports, improving navigation conditions
on the Romanian-Bulgarian sector of the Danube and transport connectivity
between the two states.

AMENDMENTS The government in Bucharest on
Friday amended a series of emergency ordinances, including the controversial 114
comprising fiscal measures. Introduced late
last year, the ordinance attracted a lot of heat from the business environment
in Romania. According to the government, the new amendments are based on the
opinions of those involved, with whom representatives of the ruling coalition have
held consultations of late, but the market reality has also been considered. Also
on Friday, the government brought amendments to laws regulating the Environment
Fund Administration Budget allowing the continuation of government programmes
aimed at renewing Romania’s car fleet with new non-polluting vehicles. Under
the fresh amendments, 35 thousand Romanians will have the chance of buying less
polluting vehicles, such as hybrid or electric cars. Romania will this year also
see the implementation of a programme providing for the installation of solar
panels that might allow citizens to produce their own green energy.

BREXIT European Council President,
Donald Tusk, has called an emergency leaders’ summit on April 10th after
British Parliament on Friday rejected for the third time the withdrawal
agreement. British Prime Minister Theresa May has voiced her deep regret for
the vote on Friday. According to a spokesperson for the government, Theresa May
will continue efforts to get her deal past the Commons. Under a decision made
by the European leaders at their latest summit in case of a new rejection,
Britain could crash out of the bloc on April 12. A Commission spokesman has
said shortly after the vote thatthe
EU has been preparing for a ‘no-deal’ scenario since December 2017 and is now
fully prepared for it. He has cautioned that a transition period will in no
circumstances be replicated in a ‘no-deal’ scenario.

(translated by bill)

29 March 2019
New reactions to Viorica Dancila’s statements the relocation of Romania’s embassy in Israel

Lack of
diplomatic skills, dilettantism in such a complicated field as foreign policy
or a faulty assessment of the effects of such a move were some of the comments
on the announcement that Romanian’s PM Viorica Dancila made in Washington DC as
regards the relocation of the country’s embassy in Israel, from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem.

In reaction to
the PM’s announcement, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said the move demonstrates once more
Viorica Dancila’s complete ignorance with regard to foreign policy and to how
important decisions for the Romanian state are made, and pointed out the final
decision on this matter is the President’s prerogative.

Iohannis also talked about
the serious effects of the PM’s announcement, such as the cancelling, by King
Abdullah of Jordan, of the visit he should have paid to Bucharest early this
week. Also, the Palestine Liberation Organization has harshly criticised PM
Dancila.

Klaus Iohannis: The King
of Jordan was personally offended by the PM’s approach at the congress in the
US and decided to cancel his visit to Romania. This is a real problem for
Romania. Romania has built a relationship with the Arab world that is based on
trust. This is one of the few constants or was one of the few constants of
Romania’s foreign policy.

On the other hand, the
Social Democrat Liviu Dragnea, the leader of the party that put PM Dancila at
the helm of the Government, says that moving the Romanian embassy from Tel Aviv
to Jerusalem has only advantages. Dragnea has called on President Iohannis to
take a decision on this matter as soon as possible, in the Supreme Council of National
Defence (CSAT) and has reproached him for not having appointed an ambassador in
Israel yet.

Liviu Dragnea: Talks on
this matter need to be initiated within the Supreme Council of National Defence
and a decision must be made. Reacting to each other’s statements does not help.
At the same time, a big problem that we have with the state of Israel is that
President Iohannis has refused, in the past two years, to appoint a Romanian
ambassador to this country, in spite of having received a number of nominations
from the Government.

The Liberals, in the
opposition, have asked for the PM’s resignation, for having damaged the image
of the country. Liberal leader Ludovic Orban.

Ludovic Orban: Romania’s
image will surely be highly damaged, at EU level. I remind Mrs. Dancila that
she doesn’t speak from a personal viewpoint, but as the PM of a country that
holds the presidency of the Council of the EU and that all her statements are
made from this official position.

The media in the EU has
made negative comments on this matter. The Romanian PM’s announcement broke the joint EU and UN line that
Israeli-occupied Jerusalem ought to be shared by Israel and Palestine in a
future two-state solution, EUObserver has reported, also saying that it did
extra damage to EU policy because Romania currently holds the six-month EU
chairmanship.

However, not all reactions to the
announcement are negative, as the PM’s announcement was hailed by the American
Vice President Mike Pence and the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

26 March 2019
March 20, 2019 UPDATE

TALKS Negotiators of the European Parliament and of the EU Council on
Wednesday ended their first round of talks over the appointment of the European
Chief-prosecutor without reaching an agreement. We recall that the former head
of Romania’s main anti-corruption agency (DNA), Laura Codruta Kovesi, is also
running for this position. The next rounds of talks are to be held on 27th
March as well as on 4th and the 10th April. We recall
that the president of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani has sent an
official letter to the Romanian Delegate Minister for European Affairs, George
Ciamba informing him that Mrs. Kovesi is the European Parliament’s candidate
for the position of European chief-prosecutor. The EU Council is backing the
French candidate Jean-Francois Bohnert. The European Prosecutor’s Office, which
is due to commence activity by the end of 2020, is to be an independent office
in charge of investigating and prosecuting frauds against the EU budget. The
European Chief Prosecutor will have a 7-year mandate, which cannot be extended.

TENNIS Romanian tennis player Monica Niculescu is on the main draw of the WTA
tournament in Miami, Florida after 6-2, 6-4 win against Katerina Kozlova of
Ukraine in the last qualifying round. On Thursday, Romanian challenger Irina
Begu is playing the Romanian-born Canadian Bianca Andreescu, who has recently
won the Indian Wells tournament. Marius Copil also from the Romanian delegation
will be playing Albert Ramos Vinolas in the first round, while in the women’s
doubles, a Romanian-German pair made up of Simona Halep and Julia Goerges will
be up against Timea Babos of Hungary and Kristina Mladenovic of France. Monica
Niculescu of Romania and Abigail Spears of the USA will be playing Anna-Lena
Groenefeld of Germany and Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic. Romanians Irina
Begu and Mihaela Buzarnescu are meeting the Taiwanese pair made up of Hao-Ching
and Latisha Chan. In the men’s doubles the Romanian-Dutch pair Horia Tecau -
Jean-Julien Rojer will be playing Oliver Marach of Austria and Mate Pavic of
Croatia.

SUMMIT Romania constantly affirmed the importance of ensuring a standard of
living for citizens as high as possible, Romania’s Prime Minister Viorica
Dancila said in Brussels on Wednesday during the Tripartite Social Summit unfolding
under the motto ‘for a stronger united and forward-looking Europe’. The summit,
which also brought together representatives of European trade unions and employers
associations was co-chaired by the president of the European Council Donald
Tusk, the president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and by
Romania’s Prime Minister Viorica Dancila as this country is currently holding
the EU rotating presidency. According to Dancila, besides moves at European
level, Romania has also taken a series of concrete measures at the domestic
level aimed at meeting the convergence objective. Also on Wednesday, Prime
Minister Dancila held talks with the First Vice-president of the European
Commission Frans Timmermans. According to a spokesperson for the Commission, the
two officials confirmed that Romania had stepped up measures aimed at
implementing recommendations from the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism and
concrete results in this respect could be expected shortly.

(translated by bill)

20 March 2019
The Week in Review, March 4 -10

Former chief prosecutor of the National
Anti-Corruption Directorate face to face with prosecutors.

The former chief
prosecutor of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruta Kovesi,
was informed on Thursday, after many hours of hearings at the special section
for the investigation of magistrates that she was charged in a second file, in
relation to the coordination of a crime group made up of prosecutors from the
same Directorate. Mrs. Kovesi rejected the accusations as mere confabulation
and claimed she is innocent. She says that she has been publicly harassed for
two years, and the Judicial Inspection representatives have verified her on 50 occasions
already. She claims that her summoning to the Prosecutor’s Office on the very
day when discussions for the election of the chief prosecutor of the future
European Public Prosecutor’s Office were being held in the European Parliament,
was not a coincidence.

Laura Codruta
Kovesi: I don’t think it’s a
coincidence, I think I was summoned on purpose for this particular day, I think
it was on purpose that I was hindered today to give statements and clear things
and I also think it was on purpose that I was summoned in relation to one case only
to find out that I was being heard in a different case, without being summoned
for it in a procedural and correct manner.

In a first file
opened by the special section for the investigation of magistrates Mrs. Kovesi
has been accused of abuse of office, false testimony and bribe-taking. We
recall that Mrs. Kovesi was dismissed last summer from the position of chief
prosecutor of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate and the justice minister
Tudorel Toader criticized her for having defied Parliament and for having
contested the decisions of the Constitutional Court.

Minister Tudorel Toader is being contested

This week the
justice minister Tudorel Toader has been faced with a simple motion but he has
been rescued by the lack of quorum, as the vote on the simple motion filed by
the National Liberal Party and the Save Romania Party was rescheduled. On
Wednesday the plenum of Parliament did not have the required quorum as the
Social Democratic MPs decided not to participate in the vote, because they claim
the motion includes many fabrications. Meanwhile, the Social Democratic leader
Liviu Dragnea explained that the situation of Tudorel Toader will be discussed
in the coalition, underlining the state of discontentment with this minister
which needs to be clarified with their junior partners in the coalition, the
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats – ALDE. An independent supported by ALDE,
Tudorel Toader has been criticized both by the Social Democrats and the
Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, which is backing the
government in Parliament. According to the Liberal Party representatives, by not
ensuring the quorum at the vote on the simple motion on justice, the ruling
coalition is putting pressure on minister Toader to promote the legislative
changes they badly require. Minister Toader is also being contested by part of
the civil society. Teachers and students on Thursday protested to show
solidarity with the magistrates’ protest, and condemned what they consider the
political subordination of the judiciary. Previously, actors from several
theaters in Bucharest and from across Romania had protested against the
subordination of justice. They are all discontented with the recent government
decree no. 7 which changes the justice laws.

The 2019 state budget bill returns to
Parliament

The 2019 state
budget bill is constitutional, the Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday,
following the notification made by President Klaus Iohannis. Refusing to
comment on the Constitutional Court’s decision, Klaus Iohannis announced he
would return the bill back to Parliament, claiming this is a budget of national
shame.

Klaus Iohannis:
The 2019 budget is based on a fantasy and there are no guarantees as to its
implementation, as also pointed out by the European institutions and other
international institutions. This budget bill places in doubt the compliance
with the international treaties Romania is part of, and, unfortunately, also
the legislation in the field. This year’s budget is designed to serve, first and
foremost, the political interests of a small group.

The
parliamentary opposition, represented mainly by the National Liberal Party and
the Save Romania Union, shares the president’s views. In exchange, the
governing coalition labeled the return of the budget bill to Parliament as
deceptive, political and irresponsible. It is obvious that president Iohannis
is only interested in winning another term and does things that endanger
Romania’s image and macroeconomic indicators.

To say that the
country is facing an economic disaster while official figures say the opposite,
shows lack of responsibility and respect for truth. Blocking the government has
become his main concern, prime minister Viorica Dancila has said. The deputy speaker
of the Chamber of Deputies Florin Iordache, speaking on behalf of the Social
Democrats, says they will send the bill to the president to sign as it was
initially passed by Parliament, without making any further changes. According
to the Social Democratic Party, the 2019 budget bill ensures the necessary
resources for all important economic sectors.

Romania at the helm of the Council of the
EU for 2 months

Romania’s
Prime Minister on Friday presented the balance of Romania’s first two months at
the helm of the Presidency of the Council of the EU. During the first two
months of its term in office, Romanian Presidency completed 67 files, half of
which have been already approved by ambassadors of EU member states. The
Romanian Presidency and the European Parliament also reached a preliminary
agreement on a set of temporary and limited measures to ensure basic road
freight and road passenger connectivity in order to mitigate the most severe
disruption in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a negotiated
agreement. During talks held in Brussels with EU chief negotiator for Brexit,
Michel Barnier, Prime Minister Dancila said this week that the Romanian
authorities have prepared for any scenario, including a no

9 March 2019