December 7, 2015

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 07.12.2015, 12:15

This week, the Romanian
Government is to adopt the 2016 draft budget, and then submit it to Parliament
for debate and approval. According to the new bill, the Defense, Interior,
Education and Health Ministries will get the highest amounts next year. Smaller
amounts have been earmarked for Labour and Transport. The estimated revenue
growth is 3.6 billion lei, approximately 800 million Euros, higher than in
2015, and expenditures are also higher, by an estimated 2.9 billion Euros,
planned to also cover the fiscal relaxation measures already approved by
Government and Parliament. Calculations were made on the basis of a deficit of
maximum 3% of the GDP and an economic growth of 4.1%.

The Romanian Finance Minister
Anca Dragu is attending in Brussels today, alongside EU counterparts, the
Economic and Financial Affairs Council. According to the Romanian Finance
Minister, the main topics on the agenda of talks are proposals regarding the
common consolidated tax base and the
new European deposit guarantee system.
Also, the participants will discuss the annual report of the European
Court of Auditors.

The far-right
National Front is the big winner of the first round of regional elections
in France, held on Sunday. With a
national record of 30% of the votes, the Front has outranked both the moderate
right wing, in the opposition, and the ruling Socialist Party. According to
analysts, the second ballot, due on December 13th, might confirm the
raise of the far-right, whose anti-immigration and anti-Islam discourse has
been growing more convincing following last month’s attacks in Paris.

The US Vice-president Joe
Biden, currently on a formal visit to Kiev, will be received today by President
Petro Porosenko and Prime Minister Arseni Iateniuk and will give a speech in
Parliament on Tuesday. According to international media, Biden will convey the
US’s message of solidarity, will reassert Washington’s opposition to the
annexation of Crimea by Russia and will confirm the support for an agreement on
restructuring Ukraine’s debt. Also, Joe Biden will encourage the fight against
corruption, which, after two years since the change of government and despite
the promises made by the new leaders, keeps affecting Ukraine, France Presse
reports.

Starting
today, for a week, Romanian soldiers are training alongside mates from the US
and the Republic of Moldova, Romania’s neighbor with a predominantly
Romanian-speaking population, at the Smardan fire range, in south-eastern
Romania, under the module ‘Platinum Lynx 16.2’, as part of the Black Sea
Rotational Force multi-national exercise. The exercise is aimed at carrying on
the joint training of the military, increasing the level of interoperability
between the participant forces and strengthening the partnership between them.
In parallel, some 200 Romanian soldiers and 350 US soldiers are participating
in the ‘Dacian Thunder 2015’ exercise, hosted by the Mihail Kogalniceanu
military base in south-eastern Romania and Campia Turzii in the west, until
December 20th. According to a communiqué issued by the Romanian
Defense Ministry, ‘Dacian Thunder’, which has reached its second edition, is
aimed at increasing the level of interoperability of the staff involved,
facilitating an exchange of experience
and improving the training of both Romanian and US military staff, in keeping
with the NATO standards.

Romania’s national women’s handball team is today
meeting the representative team of Kazakhstan, in its second match at the final
tournament of the World Championship in Denmark. At the debut match on
Saturday, the Romanian squad defeated Puerto Rico 47 to 14. Part of the same
group D are also Spain, Norway and Russia. The top four in each group will
qualify for the eights. The World Championship is also a criterion for the
qualification to the Rio Olympics. Romania is the only country which, starting
1957, has participated in all the final tournaments of the World Championships,
winning gold in 1962 and silver in 1973 and 2005 respectively.