October 18, 2014
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news
Florentin Căpitănescu, 18.10.2014, 12:00
Famous rating agency Standard&Poor’s has reconfirmed Romania’s sovereign debt rating on short and long term with stable outlook. According to the Finance Ministry in Bucharest, the rating was maintained due to the economic growth of 2.7% on an average between 2014 and 2017, the continued process of fiscal consolidation and the decline in its external debt. The agency believes Romania will this year meet its budget deficit target of 2.2% of the GDP and that in the following three years the level of the public debt will remain under 40%. Standard&Poor’s believes the risks posed by the geo-political situation in the region are low because Romania’s trade volume with Russia and Ukraine is reduced.
Romanian tennis player Irina Begu will today play Lucie Safarova, from the Czech Republic in the semifinals of the Moscow tennis tournament with 700 thousand dollars in prize money. On Friday the Romanian outperformed Tvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria in the quarterfinals. Last year’s edition of the tournament in Moscow was won by another Romanian, Simona Halep, the world’s current number three player. Simona is now in Singapore to participate in a contest, which has brought together the world’s best 8 tennis players this year. Simona has thus become Romania’s third representative in this Champions Tournament after Virginia Ruzici in 1983 and 1984 and Irina Sparlea in 1998.
The Permanent Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest is today considering a request from the National Anti-corruption Directorate, the DNA, for the preventive detention of Ioan Adam and Viorel Hrebenciuc, two MPs from the Social-Democratic Party, the main political group of the present ruling coalition in Romania. The two are being investigated, among other persons including Social-Democrat senator Ilie Sarbu and several magistrates, for getting involved into the illegal return of thousands of hectares of forest and farmland, which has allegedly caused 300 million euros in prejudices to the National Forestry Agency Romsilva.
Romanian Minister of Education Remus Pricopie on Friday in London met baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne, the European Rapporteur for Romania between 2000 and 2004. The discussion took place during a charity event hosted by the Romanian embassy in Britain. Also on Friday, the Romanian Minister held talks with Graham Stuart, Chairman of the House of Commons Education Select Committee. High on the agenda were joint projects in the field of education and reforms carried out in the UK’s education system. The Romanian official’s agenda also includes a visit to the University College London, where classes of Romanian language are being taught.
Romanian president Traian Basescu and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin on Friday met in Milan during the Asia-Europe summit. According to the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov, the two officials had a brief discussion about the main parameters of the bilateral relations. The discussion came after the Romanian official had blamed his Russian counterpart for the annexation of Crimea in March and for Moscow’s involvement in the past months on the side of the pro-Russian secessionists in eastern Ukraine. Among other things, the Romanian president said that the leader in Kremlin ‘wants to turn the Black Sea into a Russian Lake’. The latest meeting between the two officials, before the summit in Milan, took place in April 2008, during the NATO summit in Bucharest.
Even if the risk of contamination with the Ebola virus in Romania is very low, the authorities are on high alert, state secretary with the Ministry of Health, Raed Arafat has recently announced. According to him, the risk is low because Romania’s airline company does not fly directly to the affected areas in West Africa, where the virus has so far killed 45 hundred people. The Romanian official says that 500 people are being monitored in Romania while investigations on their health are carried out in specialized laboratories abroad. About the prevention measures adopted by the authorities in Bucharest, there is a special medical unit close to Bucharest.
