December 19, 2014 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 19.12.2014, 20:04
On Saturday, one day before his second consecutive 5 year term in office ends, Traian Basecu will hold his last press conference as president of Romania. On Sunday, he will hand over the office to president elect Klaus Iohannis, after the latter has been sworn in in solemn Parliament session. Klaus Iohannis will be received by a guard of honour at the Presidential Cotroceni Palace, where Traian Basecu will hand over to him the State Seal. The two will also have a private talk. Klaus Iohannis is the fourth president of Romania after the anti-Communist Revolution of December 1989. A former president of the National Liberal Party, he won 54.43 % of the votes in the second round of the presidential elections held on November 16th, defeating the current prime Minister Victor Ponta.
Romanian Finance Minister Darius Valcov believes that next year Romania’s economic growth will exceed 3% and budget revenues will exceed the level established in the draft state budget. According to the Romanian official, the additional revenues expected in the first part of 2015 could be use for a drop in the VAT, either in full, or just for certain categories of foodstuffs. On Friday, the 2015 draft budget was submitted to Parliament for debates. The budget was build on a deficit of 1.8% of the GDP, a 2.2% inflation rate and an economic growth of 2.5%. The largest bits will go to the ministries of labour, finance, agriculture, European funds, transport and economy. The most disadvantaged will be the health, culture, administration and interior ministries. The final vote will be cast on Sunday, December 21st.
Commemoration events continued in the western Romanian city of Timisoara on Friday, to pay tribute to the heroes that lost their lives during the anti-Communist revolution. 25 years ago on December 19, tens of thousands of people took to the streets, to protest against the country’s communist regime. On the following day, December 20, Timisoara was proclaimed “Romania’s first communism-free city”. The events in Timisoara, which broke out as early as December 16, were the trigger of the Romanian revolution that a couple of days later reached its peak with the collapse of the Ceausescu regime. Romania was the former Eastern Bloc’s only country where the regime change meant violent bloodshed and where the communist leaders were executed.
The unemployment rate in Romania reached 6.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2014, that is 0.2 per cent less as compared to the previous quarter, according to data made public by the National Statistics Institute on Friday. The survey also reveals that in the third quarter of 2014, the employment rate for men stood at 70 per cent, bigger than the employment rate for women, which was 55 per cent. The employment rate for people in the rural regions stood at nearly 64 per cent, while residents of urban regions had an employment rate standing at 61.6 per cent. A record high unemployment rate of 22.5 per cent was reported among youngsters aged between 15 and 24.
At the European Council Summit in Brussels, EU leaders decided to set up a community Fund for strategic investments, the so-called “Juncker plan”, worth over 300 bn Euro. The European Parliament will have to endorse the initiative by June 2015, so that investments can be activated by mid-2015. In another move, the European Union’s heads of state and government expressed their willingness to help Ukraine implement its political reforms, also stating they were prepared to decide upon a fresh package of sanctions targeting Moscow, if necessary. The outgoing president Traian Basescu represented Romania at the Summit.
Romania’s car market in 2014 has seen growth for the first time in six consecutive years, when the car market plummeted. In the first eleven months, car sales went up by 24.1 per cent. By type of fuel, Diesel-engine cars were on top, according to the Carmakers and Importers’ Association. Dacia is still on top position among the most favorite models, while following in descending order are Volkswagen, Skoda, Renault, Ford and Opel.
