19.07.2013
For a roundup of domestic and international news click here
Mihai Pelin, 19.07.2013, 16:25
The Romanian authorities have taken into custody Omar Hayssam, the Syrian businessman with Romanian citizenship, who has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for terrorism. Hayssam was involved in the crisis of the Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq in 2005. Under conditional release, in 2006 Hayssam managed to flee Romania. He was apprehended in Syria, where he was given another four-year sentence in another trial. Heads started to roll amid the huge media scandal sparked off by his departure. Among those who stepped down at that time were the heads of the Romanian intelligence services and the country’s prosecutor general.
The Romanian President, Traian Basescu, on Friday had talks in Bucharest with the representatives of the IMF, the European Commission and the World Bank about a new precautionary agreement. The Romanian president underscored that the macroeconomic balance is still fragile, that’s why the new agreement should focus on macroeconomic consolidation, which is a sine qua non for sustainable economic growth. President Basescu also referred to other priorities of the new agreement, which should include structural reforms such as the heath care reform, the salary law in the public sector and the continuation of state-owned companies’ restructuring. The latest economic program agreed upon with international financiers was successfully completed in late June.
Romanian foreign minister Titus Corlatean is in Palma de Majorca, Spain to participate in a EU foreign ministers meeting focusing on the future of Europe. The event has also brought together representatives of the European Commission and European Parliament. High on the agenda are ways of ensuring economic growth, the creation of new jobs, Europe’s strategic positioning in the present globalisation context as well as methods to rebuild the citizens’ trust in the European project and strengthen the EU’s democratic legitimacy.
The Day of Romanian aviation and air forces, celebrated on July 20th, will be marked in Bucharest and other cities of Romania through military and religious ceremonies, exhibitions and demonstration flights. In 2013 the Romanian Air Forces celebrate 100 years since the issuance of the first Law on the organization of military aeronautics. In the past years the Romanian air forces have participated in several missions under the NATO and EU flags.
The G20 countries have announced they will back a plan by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on amending international fiscal laws. The new regulations are aimed at preventing the big international companies from transferring their profits to countries with low profit taxes. Finance ministers and central bank governors from the G20 countries on Friday convened in Moscow in a bid to step up the fight against fiscal evasion and shun a new economic slowdown. The event comes ahead the upcoming G20 summit due in Saint Petersburg in September.
More than 1100 workers from three coalmines in the Jiu Valley, southwestern Romania have staged since Thursday a sit-down strike to protest the lack of a definitive agreement for supplying coal. As many as 500 miners on Friday went on a hunger strike. Miners are discontent with the absence of such a contract which is likely to result in massive lay-offs, a solution the miners completely disagree with, as they consider their jobs being at risk. According to a communiqué issued by the ministry of the economy, the price of coal excavated from the mines that are to be closed down is regulated through a European directive, and any change has to be discussed with the Finance Ministry and the Competition Council.
European Commission officials and members of the Council for the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism for Romania and Bulgaria have convened in Brussels with the view to assessing the progress made by the two countries in the fields of justice, the rule of law and the fight against corruption. Through this mechanism, the European Commission has been monitoring the headway Romania and Bulgaria have made since their EU accession in 2007. The absence of thorough reforms in the judiciary as well as the poor results in the fight against organized crime have so far been mentioned as reasons to block the two countries’ access to the EU’s border-free area Schengen.
