The Week in Review, April 24th – 30th

A roundup of the week's main stories

România Internațional, 29.04.2017, 11:09

The vaccine crisis in Romania, about to be solved

Romania will notify the European Commission about its plans to block the export of vaccines, against the backdrop of a measles epidemic, currently affecting 5,000 people, Health Minister Florian Bodog announced on Thursday. He said the authorities are planning to block exports for other medicines as well, including those stipulated in the national healthcare programs, and in the oncology and leukaemia treatment programs. Minister Bodog says he wants Romanian patients to receive the same treatment as those in other countries where these drugs are considerably more expensive. Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu expressed his support for the Health Minister in his efforts to deal with the vaccine shortages. He went on to say that Romania will have a multi-annual procurement plan as well as an integrated management institution so that vaccination becomes a national priority.

ECHR sanctions Romania for improper detention conditions

According to the European Court of Human Rights, detention conditions in Romania breach the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, reflecting a structural instability that needs to be addressed by Bucharest authorities by means of a set of overall measures. Under a pilot ruling issued on Tuesday, the Court gave Romania a fine of 17,850 Euro and six months to find solutions to prison overcrowding. According to official data, there is currently a shortage of 11,000 seats in Romanias 44 prisons. In 8 of them, the normal occupation capacity has been exceeded by 200%. The solutions envisaged by the authorities include the building of new prisons or expanding already existing detention facilities, pardoning inmates with shorter sentences or reducing sentences under special conditions or placing some inmates on house arrest. Collective pardon or house arrest will only solve prison overcrowding in the short run, the National Penitentiary Administration director Marius Vulpe claims, arguing instead in favour of building new prisons. Experts say that irrespective of their costs, these measures will turn out to be profitable investment. In recent years, the Romanian state has paid 2 million euros worth of damages to detainees who won cases they referred to the ECHR, deploring improper detention conditions.

Court upholds two-year suspended sentence for Social Democratic leader Liviu Dragnea

The leader of the Social Democratic Party and speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Liviu Dragnea said on Thursday he would appeal the latest ruling of the High Court of Cassation and Justice at the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union. Romanias supreme court on Monday rejected his appeal to annul a two-year suspended sentence for electoral fraud. The sentence is now final. Dragneas lawyers argued that the sentence should be annulled because two judges retired before the courts motivation was drafted and that other persons signed the motivation instead. They also claimed the 30-day legal deadline for drafting the motivation was exceeded. Liviu Dragnea received a two-year suspended sentence in 2016 for rigging a 2012 referendum on the impeachment of the then president Traian Basescu. Dragnea was accused of creating a system, before and during the ballot, meant to overturn the outcome of the vote and make sure the required turnout was achieved. This did not happen, however, and the referendum was not valid, so Traian Basescu remained in office.

Romania and 3 other EU countries report budget deficit of or above 3% of the GDP in 2016

Romanias budget deficit in 2016 was 3% of the GDP, according to the Statistical Office of the European Union, Eurostat. Bucharest had pledged not to go over this ceiling, which may trigger an excessive deficit procedure from the European Commission. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country was around 170 billion euros, and the deficit exceeded 5 billion euros. Three other EU member states saw a budget deficit equal to or higher than 3% of their GDP, namely the UK, France and Spain. On the other hand, the Eurostat announced, at the end of last year, that Romania was among the EU countries with the lowest government debt to GDP ratios, 37.6%, much under the 60% ceiling stipulated in the Maastricht Treaty as one of the criteria for joining the Eurozone. In its winter economic forecast, the European Commission warned that Romania might see in 2017 the most substantial deepening of the budget deficit in the Union, in spite of having had the highest economic growth rate last year. The Commission estimates that Romanias budget deficit might reach 3.6% of the GDP this year, exceeding the Governments target of 2.98%. The Commission also expects Romania to have a 4.4% economic growth rate, below the estimated 5.2% on which the Government has based its state budget allocations this year.

Romania subscribes to the EU stand on Brexit negotiations

The Romanian Minister Delegate for European Affairs Ana Birchall took part on Thursday in Luxembourg in the meeting of the General Affairs Council, the first meeting of 27 member states, without the UK. According to Birchall, the priority in the Brexit negotiations will be to ensure a balanced agreement, reflecting objectively and fairly all the 4 freedoms of the single market, including the free movement of people. The meeting in Luxembourg was held following the UK official notification of its intention to terminate its EU membership.