January 20, 2015

News and current affairs from Romania

Bogdan Matei, 20.01.2015, 11:59

The Swiss Franc has registered a slight drop on the Romania currency market, at 4.4354 lei, as compared to the record 4.47 lei yesterday. That appreciation came after the central bank of Switzerland removed last week the ceiling set for the exchange rate at 1.2 Francs per Euro. Since then, the Swiss Franc has appreciated strongly against the Euro, as well as against the Romanian Leu. Romanian political parties are seeking solutions for the over 75,000 Romanians who have taken out loans in Swiss Francs. In Parliament, the leadership in the Chamber of Deputies has decided to commence debating the law on personal bankruptcy in the judicial committee.

The IMF has cut down its estimates for worldwide economic growth from 3.5% in 2015 and 3.7% in 2016 compared to its previous estimate of 3.8 and 4% respectively, wihch it had issued in October. The most significant downward revision is on Russia, against the background of increased geopolitical tensions and low crude oil prices. The Russian GDP, they said, is expected to go down this year by 3%, and 1% in the upcoming year. The IMF has also downsized its estimation of the growth of the Eurozone, to 1.2% in 2015 and 1.4% in 2016. Germany is supposed to grow 1.3% this year and 1.5% next year. France is expected to register 0.9% growth in 2014 and 1.3% in 2015. Emerging economies and developing states in Europe, including Romania, are supposed to grow 2.9% this year and 3.1% next year. The growth in the Chinese economy will be moderate, 6.8% in 2015 and 6.3% in 2016. The US economy is expected to grow by 3.6% in 2015, and by 3.3% in 2016, from a modest 2.4% in 2014, against the backdrop of rising domestic demand.

Marius Copil, 194 seed in the WTA, the only Romanian tennis player at the singles in the Australian Open, surprisingly managed to qualify to the second round, after defeating in Melbourne today Spanish player Pablo Andujar, seeded 40, in three sets. He is the first Romanian player to take a notable position in the first Grand Slam of the year. His next adversary is the holder of the trophy, 4th seed Swiss player Stanislas Wawrinka. Two Romanian female players have qualified for the second round, Simona Halep, 3rd seed in the world, who plays Australian Jamila Gajdosova, 62nd seed, and Irina Begu, 42nd seed, who plays Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic, 81st seed.

Romanian president Kauls Iohannis visits the neighborign Republic of Moldova right after a new government is sworn in there, according to the press office of the presidency. Iohannis has held a telephone conference with his counterpart, Nicolae Timofti, agreeing that the conditions were not met for the state visit previously scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Chisinau. Iohannis said once again that he hopes the Parliament in Chisinau votes as soon as possible a strong representative government, with a strong pro-European agenda. Right after he was elected, Iohannis went to the Republic of Moldova to express his support for the three pro-European parties there, Liberal Democrat, Democrat and Liberal parties, which are part of the current government. In the November 30 elections, they collectively got 55 of the 101 seats in the lower chamber of Parliament, but did not manage subsequently to agree on sharing power. Chisinau last year signed free trade and association agreements with the EU, hoping to achieve membership in 2020.

Human Rights organization Amnesty International has called on the governments of the European countries that took part in CIA’s secret detention program to take urgent action to bring those responsible before justice. Following a US Senate Report on operations where the CIA made use of torture, Amnesty International stated that without European help, the US would have never been able to secretly detain and torture people. Amnesty has also stated the European Parliament should ask the responsible countries, among them Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Great Britain and Germany, to open investigations into that matter. We recall the authorities in Bucharest have repeatedly denied the existence of the so-called secret prisons of the CIA in Romania, and the report of the parliamentary investigation committee concluded there was no evidence supporting such accusations.