December 10, 2013
Click here for a roundup of domestic and interantional news.
Mihai Pelin, 10.12.2013, 12:14
Prime Minister Victor Ponta in Johannesburg today is Romania’s high-ranking official attending former South African president Nelson Mandela’s funerals. Joining Ponta for the ceremony will be Romania’s ex-president Emil Constantinescu. Around 100 incumbent or former heads of states and Prime Ministers, monarchs, spiritual leaders or artists have so far confirmed their presence at the ceremonies in South Africa. In the mid 1990s Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. A hero of the fight against the apartheid policy, Mandela was the first African President in South Africa’s history. 95-year old Mandela died this past Thursday and will be buried on December 15.
Romanian deputies today are to cast their final vote on the simple motion the opposition has tabled on the issue of decentralization. The opposition parliamentarians firmly believe that, under the form it will be implemented in, the decentralization will grant absolute powers to the local responsible officials and will favor what they called the party clientele. The government last month took full responsibility for the decentralization Law, scheduled to be in place as of January the 1st, 2014. The target areas are the healthcare system, agriculture, the environment, culture, youth, sports and tourism. Decentralization is viewed as a required step ahead of the administrative regionalization, one of the most challenging projects in Romania’s post-communist history.
Romanian Parliament’s joint plenary today will make a final decision on the setting up of a special commission which will check the terms according to which the country’s state-owned Savings Bank granted a one-million euro credit to one of President Traian Basescu’ s daughters. The loan was used for the purchase of a plot of a farming land, and the loan-related suspicions occurred as soon as the Finance Minister Daniel Chioitu said Romania’s President used his influential power so that the Savings Bank’s current CEO Radu Ghetea could keep its position. Romania’s Notary Public Union has already stated that the purchase contract as well as the mortgage contract the Savings Bank have asked for were perfectly legal.
Romania’s road hauliers today continue their strike, since they are discontent with the 7-Eurocents increase of the fuel excise. On Monday, hundreds of freight trucks hindered traffic along the ring roads of the country’s main cites, in token of protest against the aforementioned measure. Prime Minister Victor Ponta suggested the excise be levied on gas, while the additional taxation should be delayed by three months. The Minister delegate for the Budget Liviu Voinea will discuss the problems with the representatives of international crediting institutions. In another move, President Traian Basescu said the state budget should not stipulate the additional taxation for gas and Diesel oil.
