December 14, 2017 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 14.12.2017, 19:43

KING MICHAEL I – Three days of national mourning have been declared
in Romania to honor the memory of its last sovereign, King Michael I. King
Michael’s coffin will be lying in state
in the Throne Room of the Royal Palace in Bucharest until Saturday, when the
funeral is scheduled. The body of King Michael was brought to Romania on
Wednesday, and the coffin was taken for a few hours to the Royal Peles Castle
in Sinaia mountain resort, where Romanian and Moldovan officials paid their
last respects to the former King. Many people lined the route of the funeral
procession between the airport and the mountain resort of Sinaia to bid
farewell to the last King of Romania who ruled between 1940 and 1947. King
Michael died on December 5 in Switzerland at the age of 96. He will be laid to
rest at the royal necropolis in Curtea de Arges (in the south). The funerals
will be attended by personalities from all over the world. According to the
site romaniaregala.ro, attending the funerals, besides the Royal Family of
Romania, will be representatives of the Royal Families of Great Britain,
Sweden, Spain, Belgium, Jordan, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Bahrain, Bulgaria,
Greece, Serbia, Albania, France, Prussia and Portugal. Also attending the
funerals will be representatives of the Imperial Families of Russia, Austria
and Germany, the Grand Duchy of Baden and the Princely House de Ligne.

BREXIT – The
developments in the Brexit process and the issues caused by migration are the main
topics on the agenda of the winter European Council which started on Thursday
in Brussels. Romania is represented by President Klaus Iohannis. The EU leaders
will look at the progress made in the negotiations with London in three
specific fields, namely citizens’ rights, dialogue with Ireland and Great
Britain’s financial commitments to the EU budget. The participants will also
adopt the guidelines that will facilitate the passing to the 2nd stage of
Brexit negotiations, in the context in which the EU chief negotiator Michel
Barnier confirmed that sufficient progress was reported in the 1st stage. On
the sidelines of the European Council, President Iohannis will participate in
the Euro+ Summit, which will be attended also by EU countries that are not in
the Euro zone. As regards security and defense, the summit will discuss the
instrument of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO). President Iohannis will
reiterate Bucharest’s commitment to help render PESCO operational and will show
that the implementation of this instrument should lead to a more efficient
development of military capabilities and to an increased cohesion among EU
states. President Iohannis will also advocate the deepening and extension of
EU-NATO cooperation, the presidential administration reports.

JUSTICE – The Romanian Chamber of Deputies has passed the
amendments modifying the justice laws that refer to the organization of the
judiciary and the functioning of the Superior Council of Magistracy. The bill
on the organization of the judiciary provides, among other things, for the
setting up of a unit for investigating prosecutors and judges and for the
possibility of solutions adopted by prosecutors being rejected by their
superiors, if the latter consider them illegal or ungrounded. The second bill
that was passed, related to the functioning of the Superior Council of
Magistracy, states that the Judicial Inspection, which will remain a part of
the institution, is the only body allowed to take disciplinary actions against
a magistrate, eliminating from this procedure the justice minister and the
president of the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The two bills will be
sent to the Senate, which is currently analyzing, in emergency procedure, the
bill on the status of magistrates.

BUDGET – The
joint budget and finance committees of the Romanian Parliament on Thursday
continued debates on the budgets to be allotted in 2018 to the main public
institutions. The committees endorsed the budgets earmarked for justice, defense, internal affairs and
agriculture. The majority coalition wants to finalize debates and
the joint committees’ report by Saturday, so as to be able to debate the draft
budget law during Monday’s plenary session. The final vote on the 2018 budget
and social security bill is scheduled for December 21. The budget was built on
an estimated 5.5% economic growth rate,
and additional revenues are to be distributed to healthcare, education and
investment. The government has also allotted resources for the rise in the
minimum salary and pensions. The opposition has contested the budget, claiming
that revenues are overestimated.

FDI – Foreign Direct
Investments in Romania went up by 17% in the first ten months of 2017, as
compared to the same period in 2016, reaching 4.09 billion Euro, according to
data made public on Thursday by the National Bank of Romania. Between January -
October 2017, the current account of the balance of payments registered a
deficit of 5.3 billion Euros, 87% more than in the same period in 2016, the
Central Bank has also announced. Romania’s external debt grew by 1.3 billion
Euros in the first ten months of this year.

EUSDR – Romania will hold the
presidency of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) between November
2018- November 2019, the Romanian Minister Delegate for European Affairs Victor
Negrescu announced on Thursday. He said that the term will coincide with the
Romanian presidency of the EU Council as of January 2019. EUSDR is one of the
four EU macro-strategies, co-initiated by Romania and Austria and launched in
2011. It was developed in order for the Danube Region countries and
stakeholders to address common challenges together. The participating countries
are Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czcek Republic, Croatia, Germany, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Hungary, Bosnia-Hertegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, the Republic of
Moldova and Ukraine.

PATRIOT
– Romania has already paid for the first Patriot missile system and next week
will make another payment, this time for armored vehicles. The announcement
was made on Thursday by the Romanian Defense Minister Mihai Fifor in the
Senate’s budget-finance committee. Romania wants to purchase six Patriot
systems, worth a total of 3.9 billion dollars, VAT not included. The first
system costs 756 million dollars. The Patriot air and missile defense systems
will become part of the Romanian Army’s equipment in the second half of 2019,
and the first one will be rendered operational in mid 2020.

NATO – Canadian pilots at the Mihail Kogalniceanu airbase
in the southeast of Romania on Thursday participated alongside Romanian pilots
in an Air Policing drill, which is part of the NATO Plan to strengthen the
eastern flank of the Alliance. MiG-21 LanceR and CF-18 Hornet planes carrying
missiles are prepared to intercept potential unidentified aircraft nearing
Romania’s airspace. The drill is meant for the joint training of
military, with a view to meeting NATO’s specific inter-operability requirements
and boosting the level of cooperation with the allies.