June 26, 2014 UPDATE
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Valentin Țigău, 26.06.2014, 19:36
On Thursday the Government of Romania passed an emergency ordinance that allows banks to reduce to a half the monthly payments for clients who have difficulties repaying their loans, for a period of 2 years. PM Victor Ponta said the bill is part of a set of measures the Cabinet is planning, and which also includes the exemption from taxes on reinvested profits, the increase of minimum wages to 205 euros starting on July the 1st, and the reduction of social security payments as of October the 1st. The Government also announced the date of the 2 rounds of the presidential election, which will take place on November the 2nd and 16th, respectively.
EU members and candidate countries have grown tired of the pace of the enlargement process, above all, the accession of Romania and Bulgaria, which raised a lot of questions about the credibility of the process, Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule said on Thursday. He added that the greatest challenge was to return the lost credibility to the enlargement process. “This forces us to expand and tighten benchmarks. Candidate states should prove that the adopted legislation is working,” Stefan Fule also said.
EU heads of state and government met in Brussels on Thursday to outline the strategy of the organisation for the coming years, and to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War One. Romania was represented by President Traian Basescu. The Summer European Council took place one day before the signing of the EU association and free trade agreements with Georgia and the Republic of Moldova and of the economic chapters of the agreement with Ukraine, whose political chapters were signed in April. Also on Friday, the European Council may take a decision regarding the candidate for European Commission president, which will be voted by the European Parliament next month.
Ukraine will start implementing the EU Association Agreement as soon as the document has been signed, President Petro Poroshenko said on Thursday. He is in Strasbourg and he is to sign his country’s EU association agreement on Friday in Brussels. Poroshenko was elected president of Ukraine on May the 25th, and he has recently announced a peace plan to resolve the crisis in the east of the country, a plan fully supported by the EU and the USA.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague went on an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Thursday, to urge the Iraqi leaders to join forces against the “threat” of the Sunni insurgence. PM Nouri al-Maliki said a political solution, parallel to the military action, is necessary in order to end the crisis facing the country. On June the 9th Sunni insurgents launched an offensive that ensured their control over five provinces north and west of Baghdad and left over 1,000 dead while displacing other hundreds of thousands of people. According to France Presse, this has brought pressure on PM Nouri al-Maliki, who is widely criticised and accused of aggravating sectarian tensions in a country on the verge of chaos.
