March 8, 2019 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 08.03.2019, 20:06

EU COUNCIL – Romanias Prime Minister Viorica Dancila has presented in Bucharest the results of the first two months of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU. Its been an efficient and high-quality mandate, highly appreciated by all European partners, the Prime Minister has said underlining the completion of 67 files during this period. Referring to major issues on the European agenda, Dancila has stated that Romania has managed to secure consensus on several pending files like the post-2020 EU budget, the functioning of the European single market, competitiveness, stimulating digitization, social protection, internal security, fighting terrorism, handling migration challenges, the future of the EU after Brexit through tight cooperation as well as an open and constructive dialogue with representatives of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the General Secretariat of the Council. In the first two months of its term, Romania managed over 650 events and meetings, both in the country and in Brussels, the Prime Minister has also said.

JHA – The Romanian interior and justice ministers, Carmen Dan and Tudorel Toader respectively, attended in Brussels on Thursday and Friday the Justice and Home Affairs Council, held in the context of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU. On Friday, the justice ministers held talks on the functioning of the European Public Prosecutors Office. Tudorel Toader has stated that the participants discussed stages for the designation of the candidates for the office of European prosecutor, a process that must be finalized by the end of the month. The European Commissioner for Justice, Vera Jurova, has stated that one of the objectives is the designation of a European chief prosecutor by April and encouraged a fair process, without any attempt at discrediting any of the candidates. On Thursday, the first day of the JHA meeting, it was established that each member state would have a platform to report the incidents that might affect the European Parliament elections, due in May. Also, the EU Council has adopted a decision to modify the civil protection mechanism.

BUDGET – The macroeconomic forecasts the 2019 state budget is based upon are unrealistically optimistic, Cosmin Marinescu, an economic advisor to the Romanian president, said in Bucharest on Friday. According to Marinescu, incomes are over evaluated by 1% of the GDP and are based exclusively on promises. Investments from local authorities are at an all-time low of 1.2% of the GDP and the budget adopted in February indicates a Romanian contribution to the EU diminished by 105 million Euros. Marinescu went on to say that the big deficit shows that there is no adjustment against 2018, which runs counter to the European Commissions recommendation of 1% of the GDP. Romanian president Klaus Iohannis has sent back to Parliament the law on the 2019 state budget. The president had previously notified the Constitutional Court, which deemed the law as constitutional. The 2019 budget is based on a 5.5% economic growth, a 2.5% deficit and a GDP of 200 billion Euros.

ECONOMY – With a 0.7% growth in the fourth quarter of 2018 as against the previous three months of the year, Romanias economic growth was three times higher than the 0.2% reported in the Eurozone and more than double the 0.3% reported in the EU, says the statistical office of the European Union, Eurostat. However, the growth rate of the Romanian economy in the last three months of 2018 was below the ones in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, Cyprus, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Slovakia. Finland, Denmark and Spain have also reported a growth rate of 0.7% whereas Germany, Europes biggest economy, reported zero growth in the same period of last year. Greece and Italy experienced a decline of 0.1%. In comparison with the same period of 2017, in the fourth quarter of 2018, Romanias economy registered a growth rate of 4%, nearly four times higher than the 1.4% EU rate and 1.1% in the Eurozone.

JUSTICE – Romanias Prosecutor General Augustin Lazar called on the Superior Council of Magistracy on Friday to refer to the Constitutional Court the constitutional legal conflict between the Government, on the one hand, Parliament, the SCM and the Prosecutor Generals Office on the other, a conflict triggered by the way in which the Executive has modified the justice laws. According to Augustin Lazar, by adopting emergency decrees amending the justice laws, the Government has exceeded its constitutional responsibilities and these actions are a threat to democracy and the rule of law. The recent emergency decree no.7, which has once again modified the justice laws, has been vehemently criticized by magistrates. Prosecutors and judges from some 80 prosecutors offices and courts across the country have protested by suspending their judicial activities and public relations and staging demonstrations in front of the courts. In solidarity with the magistrates, actors from several theaters in Romania, professors and students have organised protests too.

DEMOGRAPHICS – Romanias population continues to diminish due to a decline in the fertility rate and also due to migration, data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) show. 200 people, mostly men aged 30 to 40, leave the country on a daily basis. According to the aforementioned institute, on January 1st 2018 there were 120 thousand people less than on January 1st 2017. According to the same data, more Romanians died than were born and the number of those leaving the country was higher than those who entered it. A 2017 INS survey shows that more children were born in Romanian families living in Italy than in Romania and the number of children born in Romanian families abroad is double than in Romania.

HANDBALL – Romanias womens handball champions CSM Bucharest ended in a draw the match against the German team Thuringer, the last in Group 2 of the Champions League. The Romanian team ranks 3rd in the group and has already qualified for the quarter finals. Top of the group is Gyor of Hungary. Vipers of Norway and FTC Budapest have also qualified for the next round of the competition, where they will compete against the top four teams in Group 1 for a place in the Final Four tournament in Budapest, Hungary. CSM won Champions League in 2016.