October 13, 2017

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Newsroom, 13.10.2017, 14:55

VISIT Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Pavlo Klimkin is today paying a working visit to Bucharest where he will be having talks with Romanian counterpart Teodor Melescanu, with the Minister for the Romanians Abroad, Andreea Pastarnac as well as with a delegation of the Romanian government. The talks agenda is dominated by the situation of the Romanian community in Ukraine affected by the provisions of the new education law, which drastically limits access to education in their mother tongue. The law was categorically criticised in a resolution adopted by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly on Thursday.

TALKS Romanian president Klaus Iohannis is today having talks in Bucharest with the European Council president Donald Tusk. The future of the EU is high on the two officials agenda. The meeting comes before the next weeks session of the European Council expected to focus on migration, digital Europe, security and defence issues and the EUs foreign relations with emphasis on the relation with Turkey.

MEETING The leadership of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the main political group in the government coalition, is convening today in Bucharest to decide on the replacements for the ministers who stepped down on Thursday. Deputy Prime Minister Sevil Shhaideh, the European Funds Minister Rovana Plumb and Transport Minister Razvan Cuc decided to step down so that they may not affect government activity, the PSD president Liviu Dragnea has announced. The first two ministers are under investigation in anti-corruption files. The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, the PSD partner in the ruling coalition, has announced it will not withdraw support for its Minister for the Relation with Parliament, Viorel Ilie, currently under investigation for influence peddling.

ROBOR The ROBOR index, according to which, interest rates for credits in the local currency are calculated, has risen to a 1.84% record high in the past years, data released by the Romanian Central Bank have revealed. The unusual increase, which began in September, was caused by an improved tax collection process. The Central Bank has recently intervened granting record loans of nearly 2 billion euros to trade banks, but the measure had only a limited effect on the ROBOR increase.

BREXIT A new round of talks, the fifth on Britains leaving the EU, has ended without significant progress. Brussels chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has announced he cannot recommend the heads of state and government to advance to the next stage of the negotiations. According to him, the talks on the invoice that Britain has to pay in order to get out of the bloc is in an extremely preoccupying deadlock both for tax-payers as well as for those benefiting the European policies. Barniers counterpart in the Brexit issue, David Davis, has launched an appeal to the leaders of the European countries to recognize the progress made so that negotiations may pass to the next stage, namely the future of the trade relations with the European Union and Great Britain, namely the future of trade relations between the EU and Britain.