July 19, 2018 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

România Internațional, 19.07.2018, 19:03

Promulgation. Romania’s
President Klaus Iohannis has announced he has promulgated the law on judicial organization, after having exhausted all challenge procedures. Still,
the head of state has called on the Romanian Parliament to reintroduce the law
into the parliamentary circuit as of next autumn. The law is raising many
question marks and includes unclear provisions, which lack coherence and
predictability, the president has stated. He has also stressed that the justice
laws, promoted and endorsed by the left-wing coalition formed by the Social
Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, would de facto
push Romania far from the European values. We recall that last week, the Venice
Commission, in its preliminary opinion, drew attention to the fact that,
because of the changes brought to the justice laws, the independence of the
Romanian prosecutors and judges becomes questionable.

Forecast. The National Prognosis Commission has revised Romania’s economic
growth rate for this year down to 5.5% from 6.1% in its previous spring
forecast. The inflation rate has been revised up to 3.5% from 3.2% in spring.

Danube Region. Romania and Austria are to host the Secretariat of the EU Strategy
for the Danube Region, whose re-establishment was decided at a meeting of the
Monitoring Committee of the Danube Transnational Programme and the member
states national coordinators of the EU Strategy, an event held in Split,
Croatia. Beginning in September this year, Bucharest and Vienna will open two offices
of this body. The EU Strategy for the Danube Region is a high-visibility
political project and Romania’s first large-scale initiative after joining the
European Union. According to a press release published in Bucharest, Romania’s
presidency of the EU Council in the first part of next year is an opportunity
to promote this important framework for macro-regional cooperation on the
agenda of the Union and to ensure the necessary financial allocations for the
priorities proposed for the EU Strategy for the Danube Region and the other
macro-regional strategies.

Prices. In Romania, the price of
natural gas for domestic consumers will increase by 6% as of August 1st,
the National Energy Regulatory Agency announced on Thursday. Also on Thursday,
the Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovoci announced that the Government is
discussing a draft decision regarding the flattening of the price of natural
gas from the domestic production until June 2021. The minister has also stated
that he would like the same thing for the price of fuels.

Culture. The Romanian Government on
Thursday approved the funding of two big cultural projects, worth a total of 12
million Euros. The two projects are E-culture: Romania’s Digital Library and
Historical Monuments, Strategic Planning and Optimized Public Policies. Under
the E-culture project 550,000 cultural resources will be included in Romania’s
digital library, and an IT platform for the digital library and a catalogue
titled ‘culturalia.ro’ will be created . Also, some 200,000 cultural resources
will be included in the europeana.eu portal. The second project’s outcome will
be a cultural heritage code, as well as a national strategy concerning the
preservation of historical monuments. The projects will benefit from European
non-reimbursable funding.

Brexit. The European Commission has called on the EU countries to
accelerate preparations for the situation in which Great Britain leaves the
union without a clear agreement. The Commission has stated that the failure of
negotiations would seriously affect government affairs and travels. The
European Commission believes that preparations must be made at all levels, so
as to cover all potential consequences, in particular with regard to borders,
transport and data transfers.

Broadcasting. Radio Free Europe says it will resume news programs in
Bulgaria and Romania in December this year in a bid to consolidate the media
landscape in these countries. The station, which is funded by the United States
Congress, will carry multi-media reports and analyses in Romanian and Bulgarian
and will collaborate with the local media to expand existing projects that
promote public accountability and debunk fake news. The station’s Romanian
language service opened in 1950 and ended in 2008, when Romania had already
become a member of the European Union and NATO. Historians view as essential
the station’s contribution to the erosion and final collapse, in 1989, of the
communist dictatorship in Bucharest. The station still has a Romanian language
service in the Republic of Moldova. Radio Free Europe broadcasts to 26 million
people in 20 different countries with restrictions on media freedom and
where professional journalism is not fully developed.

Pop music. 18 singers from 15 different countries will be vying for the Grand
Trophy of the Golden Stag Festival to be held in Brasov, central Romania,
between the 29th of August and the 2nd of September. The initial line-up was
15, but organizers decided to expand it following great demand. Romania has
three representatives, Dora Gaitanovici, Ovidiu Anton and Raluca Blejusca,
while the Republic of Moldova is represented by Lidia Isac. The Golden Stag
Festival this year celebrates its 50th anniversary with a special edition and
65,000 Euros worth of prizes. The festival will come to an end with a Romania
Centenary show featuring traditional Romanian music and contemporary
reinterpretations of his genre.

Football. The Romanian football squad Viitorul Constanta on Thursday
qualified for the second round of Europa League’s preliminaries, after a 0-0
draw in the match against Racing FC Union Luxembourg. In the first match, away
from home, the Romanians had won 2-nil. The other teams representing Romania in
Europa League are the vice-champion FCSB (formerly known as Steaua Bucharest),
which will play in the second round against the Slovenian squad NK Rudar
Velenje and the cup winner CSU Craiova, which will play straight into the third
preliminary round. Romania’s champions CFR Cluj will take on the Swedish team
Malmo FF in the second preliminary round of the Champions League.