8 December, 2015

Romania scores record economic growth, Austria builds border fence

Newsroom, 08.12.2015, 11:59

Romania had the highest economic growth in the EU in the third quarter of this year, as compared to the previous. This data was published by Eurostat. Romania, with a growth of 1.4%, is followed by Croatia, with 1.3%, Malta, 1.1%, and Latvia, with 1%. Recently, the European Commision upgraded its economic growth forecast for Romania in 2015 up to 3.5%. The EC estimated that Romanias GDP would grow by 4.1% in 2016 and 3.6% in 2017 as consumption grows and taxation is lowered.

Austria has started building a metal fence two meters high and 3.7 km long on the border with Slovenia, to thwart the inflow of migrants in the country, though it has been dwindling of late, according to AFP. This is the first time this occurs within the Schengen space, according to the agency. In September, Hungary also erected barbed wire metal fences at its borders with Serbia and Croatia. Subsequently, Slovenia erected another such fence on its border with Croatia. According to the World Migration Organization, Austria and Germany had this year around one million applications for asylum. 878,000 migrants crossed the Mediterranean in 2015, four times more than last year. Over 3,500 people have drowned in the sea, and almost 600 trying to cross from Turkey to Greece.

Romanias womens national handball team will today be taking on the similar team of Spain, with the game counting as the third fixture Romanian is playing the at the World Championships final tournament, underway in Denmark. In its first two games, Romania trounced Puerto Rico, 47-14 and secured a stout 36-20 win over Kazakhstan. Also joining Romania in group D are Norway and Russia. The first four teams in each group will go through to the eighth finals. Romania is the only country that as early as 1957 took part in all World Championships final tournaments, where they won three medals, gold in 1962 and silver in 1963 and 2005, respectively.

24 people injured in the fatal fire in the Bucharest club Colectiv are still under care in hospitals in the capital, 3 of them still in critical state, according to the Health Ministry. 28 others are under care abroad. Their state will be evaluated by a special committee in order to facilitate their full access to medical services. The committee will also see if the patients abroad still need monitoring, and will assess the needs of the patients within the country. The Health Ministry also evaluates next week a report on infections developed during in-patient care, subsequent to information that three of the victims of the Colectiv fire died from such infections. As of now, the Colectiv incident left 60 dead.

The Romanian government called for a public debate on the 2016 budget, attended by the ministers of finance, transportation, European funds and agriculture. The selection of the ministers was made in relation to messages received by ministries. This is the first time that the executive holds such a dialog with citizens. More funding is as of now provided for the ministries of defense, interior, education and health, with budgets slashed for the ministries of labor and transportation. Stay tuned for more after the news.

Romanian Finance Minister Anca Dragu joins today in Brussels her EU counterparts in the Council for Economic and Financial Affairs. The main topics are fighting financing of terrorism and the deposit and insurance scheme in case of bankruptcy. Yesterday, Eurozone finance ministers have decided the base principles of community taxation of financial transactions, which could be applied starting next year. The so-called Obin tax would apply to banks, investment firms, insurance agencies, pension funds and brokers. This tax is supposed to generate annual revenues worth 57 billion Euro.

US Vice-President Joe Biden, on an official visit to Ukraine, addresses today the Ukrainian Parliament. Yesterday, after meeting President Petro Poroshenko, Biden said that Ukraine has to rid itself of corruption by speeding up reform, increasing transparency at all levels of governance, and strengthening the rule of law. Upon arrival in Ukraine, Biden said that the US would boost its assistance to that country by 200 million dollars, to be used to fight corruption and further reform.