26 March, 2015

News and current affairs from Romania

Bogdan Matei, 26.03.2015, 11:59

In Bucharest, the new tax code is in Parliament for debate and approval, after being introduced yesterday by the executive. The code is aimed at boosting economic growth by reducing tax burdens. The most important change, which would come into effect next year, would reset the VAT at 20% across the board, as compared to the present figure of 24%, and 9% for food products.

The Constitutional Court is set to rule today in the case against Darius Valcov, former finance minister. The panel decides whether he can be taken into preventive custody for influence peddling. On Wednesday he was detained for 24 hours, shortly after the Senate gave its approval. Valcov is accused of granting preferential public acquisition contracts while he was mayor of Slatina, a southern city for a kickback of 2 million Euros. Also on Wednesday, senators have rejected the application submitted by anti-corruption prosecutors to lift immunity for Dan Sova, from the Social Democratic party, former minister of transportation, accused of conspiracy to abuse office in a case involving the activity of two state companies. The lower chamber at the same time approved preventive detention for Liberal Theodor Nicolescu. He is accused of bribe taking and abuse of office in a case involving over-evaluated real estate.

The Romanian delegate minister for relations with Romanians abroad, Angel Tilvar, starts today an official two-day visit to the Republic of Moldova to meet officials and civil society representatives, to reiterate Romania’s commitment to the neighboring country’s European integration. The visit comes as the speaker of the Moldovan Parliament visits Romania, meeting the prime minister and the foreign minister, and the speakers of the two chambers of the Romanian parliement. These summit meetings come as the two countries celebrate 97 years since Bessarabia, a province which is now the Republic of Moldova, united with Romania to form Greater Romania in 1918. The territory was taken over by the USSR in 1940.

Romania’s national football team is getting ready for this coming Sunday’s home game against Faeroe Islands, hosted by the southern Romanian town of Ploiesti, counting towards Group F of the Euro 2016 preliminaries. Romania tops the table in the group, in the wake of an all-win track record, including this past autumn’s 1-nil and 2-nil away wins against Greece and Finland, respectively, a 1-all home draw against Hungary, and a 2-nil win in the game against Northern Ireland, also on home ground. According to FIFA’s rankings, Romania is 15-th placed, the best position since September 2008. In the last two and a half years, Romania has skipped 42 notches in FIFA’s rankings, as in September 2012 our national team occupied the 57th position, a record low for Romania. Our national team’s all-time high position occurred in 1973, when Romania was 3rd placed in the aforementioned rankings.

Romanian tennis player Irina Begu, 35th seeded in the WTA rankings, is today taking on Czech contender Tereza Smitkova, the world’s 58th tennis player, in a confrontation counting towards the WTA tournament in Miami, with 5.3 million dollars prize money at stake. Romania’s best-placed tennis player, world’s number 3 Simona Halep, on Friday will go straight into the second round, taking up yet another Czech tennis player, WTA 328th-placed Nicole Vaidisova. Last week Halep won the Indian Wells tournament, a career-best for the Romanian. On Friday, as part of the Miami tournament, the world’s number 70, Romanian Monica Niculescu, will be facing world leader Serena Williams, who is also the main favorite for winning the tournament.

The prosecutor general of Marseille is holding a press conference today regarding the airline crash two days ago in the south of France. The Airbus A320 linking Barcelona, Spain with Dusseldorf, Germany, crashed on Tuesday in a remote area of the French Alps, with the loss of all on board, 150 people. The passengers came from 18 countries, most of them from Germany and Spain. The flight recorder shows that the pilot left the cockpit before the aircraft started losing altitude and could not get back inside. Investigators have not yet ruled out any possibility in their investigation of the tragedy.

Armed conflicts in Syria and Iraq have brought a record number of asylum seekers to western countries, the highest in 22 years. The UN High Commission for Refugees, which issued this conclusion, called on developed countries to accommodate refugees. The commission informs that over 860,000 people have applied last year for asylum in developed countries, 45% more than in 2013. This is the sharpest rise since the war in Bosnia, in 1992, when the record figure of 900,000 was reached. Most of the asylum seekers right now are Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans. Germany, the US and Italy have registered the highest number of applications, in that order.