September 11, 2013
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Ştefan Stoica, 11.09.2013, 18:26
The Romanian government on Wednesday approved the final form of the letter of intent to the IMF and forwarded it to President Traian Basescu for approval. The document will be submitted to the IMF Board on Thursday. The Romanian PM announced that on September 17th he would present in Parliament the most important provisions of the future agreement. In late July the Romanian authorities agreed with the IMF and the EC upon a new 2-year precautionary agreement worth 4 billion euros. The agreement is to be discussed by the IMF board in autumn.
The Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, reiterated Wednesday in Bucharest his country’s support for Romania’s Schegen accession. At the end of the meeting with his Romanian counterpart, Titus Corlatean, he said that Romania and Poland should benefit from the excellent political relations between the two countries, by strengthening economic cooperation and encouraging investments. In turn the Romanian FM pointed out that Poland was one of Romania’s close friends, a key European partner and a traditional ally.
Legal action was taken on Wednesday by the prosecutors of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate against the Romanian euro MP Adrian Severin who is accused of bribe taking and influence peddling. He allegedly accepted to receive bribe worth 100 thousand euros every year, between December 2010- March 2011, in exchange for submitting amendments to the European Parliament’s specialist committees to support the interest of certain companies. Adrian Severin also allegedly accepted to vote against some amendments that ran counter to the interests of certain companies that were actually represented by undercover reporters of “Sunday Times”. In June 2011 the European Parliament decided to lift the parliamentary immunity of Adrian Severin.
The US commemorated on Wednesday 12 years since the unprecedented 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001. As many as 3000 people died in the attacks among whom 3 Romanians. The Romanian President Traian Basescu on Wednesday conveyed a message to his American counterpart Barack Obama expressing the thoughts and prayers of the Romanian people for the victims of the attacks. The Romanian president underscored the close friendship between Romania and the US which is today “stronger than ever before”. He also added that the Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership between the 2 countries was a solid basis for the commitment to international security and stability.
The atrocities perpetrated in Syria are ‘a collective failure’ of the international community, said the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, urging the UN Security Council once again to take action. Russia has forwarded to the US the plan for international monitoring of the Syrian chemical arsenal, which is to be discussed Thursday in Geneva by the two countries’ foreign ministers. The American President Barack Obama said he wanted to give a chance to the Syrian diplomacy in the context in which Damascus officials gave assurances that they were ready to give chemical weapons.
On Wednesday Romania won new medals at the Francophone Games hosted by the French city of Nice. The Romanian pair Hunor Szocs/Cristina Hîrîci won gold in the table tennis mixed doubles and Hunor Szocs also won gold in the male singles. Another Romanian athlete Sergiu Ursu won gold in the disc-throwing event. Romania also obtained gold, silver and bronze in the wrestling competition. So far the Romanian athletes have won 9 medals: 5 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze.
