4 December 2015, UPDATE

Romania' president Klaus Iohannis had talks with the director of the IMF's European Department, Poul Thomsen

Newsroom, 04.12.2015, 12:15

Romania-IMF. The Romanian president Klaus Iohannis had talks on
Friday with the director of the IMF’s European Department Poul Thomsen about the positive
prospects of the Romanian economy and the latest European developments. The two
officials emphasised the need for Romania to continue reforms against a
backdrop of fiscal, budgetary and financial predictability and reiterated the
importance of consolidating the trust of the business community and Romania’s
foreign partners in the government’s policies. The IMF official, who served as
the Fund’s chief negotiator with Romania between 1996 and 1998, also had talks
with prime minister Dacian Ciolos, the governor of the National Bank Mugur
Isarescu and the leaders of the Social Democratic Party and the National Liberal Party, the largest in Parliament.
Since 2009, Romania has signed three consecutive agreements with the IMF and
the European Union. The latest, worth 2 billion euros, expired in September
2015 without Romania having had to access the available funds. The purpose of
this precautionary-type agreement was to protect the country’s economy from
possible shocks on the financial market.

Economy. Romania’s GDP rose by 3.7% in the first 9
months of the year compared with the same period last year, according to the
National Institute of Statistics. All economic sectors have contributed to this
growth with the exception of agriculture, forestry and fisheries. The European
Commission has improved its autumn forecast of Romania’s economic growth rate,
whose pace will accelerate this year and in 2016 to reach 3.5% and 4.1%,
respectively, on the back of recent
tax relaxation measures to stimulate domestic demand.

Corruption. The High Court of Cassation and Justice in Bucharest
on Friday ruled that the Social Democrat senator and former transport minister
Dan Sova be placed under house arrest as part of a corruption investigation. He
was detained on Thursday, being accused of peddling in influence in relation to
a legal assistance contract with a state energy company. According to the
National Anticorruption Directorate, between 2011 and 2014, Sova received
100,000 euros to convince the company’s general director to sign a contract
with a certain law firm. Sova is also mentioned in another case involving and
the former prime minister Victor Ponta who resigned last month. Also on Friday,
the MP Florin Popescu was convicted by the High Court to two years in prison
for demanding tens of tonnes of food products which he distributed to voters
prior to the local elections of 2012. At that time, Popescu was the president
of the Dambovita County Council and was a member of the Liberal Democratic
Party, which later merged with the National Liberal Party.

Counter-terrorism. Five Somali citizens were found by the
Romanian border police while trying to cross the country’s eastern border
illegally to reach Western Europe. Border police officials said a careful examination will be made of everybody crossing the border, including
data bases and travel documents, even in the case of European citizens. The
purpose of this measure is to prevent persons seen as a threat to domestic and
foreign security from crossing the border. In another development, European
interior ministers agreed in Brussels on a system of sharing airline passenger
information. The police would have access to names, itinerary and credit cards
information. The details would be collected from European carrier flights
entering or leaving the European Union.
The document must first be endorsed by the European Parliament during a
vote next month.

Military exercise. Around 200 Romanian military
and some 350 US troops take part in the Dacian Thunder exercise that started on
Friday and comes to an end on the 20th of December at the air bases
in Mihail Kogalniceanu, in the south-east, and Campia Turzii, centre-west.
According to a press release from the Romanian defence ministry, the Dacian
Thunder, which is now in its second year, aims to increase the level of staff interoperability,
ensure an exchange of experience and improve the training of the Romanian and
US staff by carrying out joint flights in keeping with NATO standards.

Transdniester. The Romanian foreign minister
Lazar Comanescu on Thursday attended the 22nd meeting of the OSCE
Ministerial Council held in Belgrade. In his address, he reiterated his
country’s support for Ukraine, urged the OSCE to play a more active role to
solve the situation in Transdniester, a break-away pro-Russian region in the
east of the Republic of Moldova, and spoke about the organisation’s role in
fighting terrorism. On the sidelines of the meeting, minister Comanescu met his
Moldovan counterpart Natalia Gherman for talks on the political situation in
Chisinau and Moldova’s Association Agreement with the European Union.

Handball. The Romanian women’s handball team face Puerto
Rico on Saturday in their first match at the World Championship in Denmark.
They are in Group D, together with Kazakhstan, Spain, Norway and Russia. The
four best-ranked teams in each group will qualify to the round of last 16.
Before the start of the World Championship, Romania played four friendly games,
having won against the Czech Republic, Cuba and Sweden and lost to France.
Romania are the only team to have taken part in all editions of the World
Championship since 1957 and have so far won three medals: gold in 1962 and
silver in 1973 and again in 2005.

(Translated by: C. Mateescu)