May 22, 2015 UPDATE
A roundup of the main stories in Romania today
Newsroom, 22.05.2015, 12:15
The Eastern Partnership Summit ended on Friday in Riga with a joint declaration of EU member states and the six ex-Soviet republics wishing to pursue closer ties with the European Union, namely Ukraine, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Belarus. The main areas of cooperation established for the coming period are institutional consolidation and good government, mobility and the human dimension, economic opportunities and interconnection. President Klaus Iohannis, who represented Romania in Riga, said the declaration reiterates the sovereign right of each individual partner state in establishing its own goals in its relationship with the European Union. Romania stood for an ambitious, strategic and well-defined vision in respect of the Eastern Partnership’s lines of action, Klaus Iohannis also said. The meeting in Riga came at a time when EU-Russia relations were at their lowest level since the end of the Cold War, following EU sanctions against Moscow over the latter’s annexation of Crimea and its support for the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine with weapons and troops, accusations which have been rejected by Russia.
Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia have signed an agreement for the interconnection of their natural gas networks allowing for bi-directional transit. The document was signed by the foreign ministers of the four states in Riga, at the Eastern Partnership Summit. The agreement aims to enhance the security of energy supply for all the four states. The commercial use of an interconnection between networks in Hungary and Slovakia will become operational this summer, while Hungary and Romania are working to establish a reverse flow between their gas networks.
An International Monetary Fund expert team is in Bucharest until May 26th to assess the Fund’s current agreement with Romania that comes to an end in September. Talks focus on the amendments to the Fiscal Code and the economic measures to be applied as of January 1st 2016, with the government insisting that Romania needs fiscal relaxation. According to the president of the budget and finance committee Viorel Stefan, while the IMF representatives agreed on the need for fiscal relaxation, which they see as beneficial for the Romanian economy, they want guarantees with regard to the budget deficit target Romania is committed to. The current agreement with the International Monetary Fund, the third since the start of the economic crisis in 2009, was signed in September 2013 for a period of two years and is worth almost 2 billion euros.
The Romanian Naval Forces are for the first time organising a multinational exercise called “Romanian Trident Poseidon 2015, to be carried out in the Romanian territorial waters and the Black Sea international waters until May 28th. The exercise involves ships and troops from Romania, Bulgaria and the US, as well as ground and air troops, Coast Guard forces, the Oil Services Group and medical corps. In another development, Romanian MIG 21 Lancer aircraft together with Portuguese fighter planes will carry out patrol missions of the Romanian airspace, including over the Black Sea, until the end of June. These missions are coordinated by the NATO Air Command base in Ramstein, Germany, and are part of NATO’s measures to guarantee the security of its eastern flank.
The governor of the National Bank Mugur Isarescu has recommended Romanian banks to finance the real economy, such as agriculture, where there is still a lot of reticence. At a conference on the prospects of the banking sector and the economy, Isarescu said Romania had been seeing mild increase in lending, especially in the national currency. He said the current economic growth was robust and sustainable, with inflation and deficit under control and with significant efforts aimed at fiscal consolidation. The National Bank governor emphasised that this positive trend would continue and detailed the main lines of action: increasing competition and efficiency in key economic sectors, such as energy, developing the education sector and securing quality transport infrastructure.
The band Voltaj and their song “All over again” will represent Romania in the Eurovision final held on Saturday in Vienna. 20 of the 40 countries in the semi-finals have reached the final, where they will be joined by other countries who have automatically qualified as the biggest contributors to the European Broadcasting Union, Britain, Spain, Germany, France and Italy, as well as last year’s winner Austria and the special guest country Australia, which received a one-off invitation this year for the 60th anniversary of the Eurovision Song contest. The winner is decided based on a 50/50 combination of telephone voting and the votes of a specialised jury from each country.
Five Romanian tennis players are in the singles main draw at Roland Garros, the second Grand Slam tournament of the year. World no. 3 Simona Halep will face the Russian player Evgeniya Rodina, ranked 91st, in the first round in Paris. Last year, Halep lost to world’s no. 2 Maria Sharapova in the final. World no. 31 Irina Begu will take on the American player Bethanie Mattek-Sands (ranked 164), while Alexandra Dulgheru will face another American player, Nicole Gibbs (no. 97). Monica Niculescu, currently ranked 69th, meets world no. 8 Carla Suraez Navarro of Spain, and Andreea Mitu, no. 99 in the world, faces Alize Lim of France (ranked 285).
