November 9, 2017 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 09.11.2017, 19:53

FINANCIAL National Bank Governor Mugur Isarescu has warned that the Romanian national currency, the leu, faces the danger of depreciation, as imports grow disproportionately to exports. He said that the National Bank reviewed its expectation for inflation at the end of the year, from 1.9% to 2.7%. For the end of 2018, the National Bank estimates a 3.2% rate of inflation. The main inflationary points of pressure, according to the governor, are rising production costs, rising wages and growing uncertainty in energy pricing. The National Institute of Statistics announced that the countrys trade deficit in the first three quarters went up to 8.8 billion Euro. According to analysts, this imbalance between imports and exports puts pressure on the Euro-leu exchange rate. In addition, uncertainty regarding proposed changes to the fiscal code, harshly criticized by trade unions, employers and the head of state, caused the leu to depreciate sharply on Wednesday against the Euro, reaching the lowest level in the last five years.

VOTE The Higher Council of the Magistrates on Thursday gave a nay vote to a series of draft amendments to Justice Laws coming from the Chamber of Deputies. The General Assembly of the anti-mafia prosecutors on Tuesday voted against the project accusing what they called ‘the incoherence of the debating process and professional consultancy’ of the magistrates. The law package was high on the agenda of talks the Romanian Justice Minister Tudorel Toader held in Brussels with the First Vice-president of the European Commission Frans Timmermans.

LAW The law on funding political parties and election campaigns is unconstitutional, Romania’s Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday approving notification from 50 opposition MPs. The court decided that the law runs against the principle of bicameralism, because the Chamber of Deputies as a decision-making body has passed a significant number of amendments, and that has radically changed the text adopted by the Senate. Among the new amendments proposed and voted on in the Chamber of Deputies there are the abrogation of a provision on confiscating contributions to election campaign and the setting up of a minimum threshold for the sums allotted to political parties.

ESTIMATES The European Commission has revised up its estimates on Romania’s economic growth and deficit for 2017 and 2018, cautioning that uncertainties in implementing government policies might affect the country’s economic growth. According to the autumn economic estimates published by the European Community on Thursday, the Romanian economy will register a 5.7% growth in 2017 against the spring estimates of only 4.3%. The European Commission has also revised up its estimates for 2018 from an initial 3.7% in spring up to 4.4%. According to these estimates, Romania saw a stepped-up GDP growth in 2017 thanks to private consumption. Its public deficit is to reach 3% of the GDP in 2017 and 3.9% in 2018.

BREXIT A new round of talks between the EU and London on the Brexit kicked off on Thursday in Brussels. The priority issues are the costs of the break-up, the rights of European and British citizens on each others territories, and the problem of the Irish-Northern Irish border. Guy Verhofstadt, the European negotiator for the Brexit, said that the guarantees offered by London regarding the rights of European citizens while in Britain were insufficient. The British government has announced recently that most EU citizens living in the UK will have the right to stay after the Brexit, in March 2019. They will have two years to apply for residency. The legal status and rights of EU citizens are key aspects in the convoluted process of Britain leaving the Union. Around 3 million EU citizens live on British territory at this point.