November 11, 2014 UPDATE
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România Internațional, 11.11.2014, 19:58
ELECTIONS – Romania’s new Foreign Minister, Teodor Melescanu, and the delegate minister for the Romanian diaspora, Bogdan Stanoevici, will discuss on Wednesday with the Chamber of Deputies’ Committee for Romanian communities abroad about the organisation of the presidential runoff. Melescanu announced on Tuesday that the Foreign Ministry had already taken measures to optimise the voting process in the diaspora on November the 16th. The number of polling booths and of stamps will be increased to seven, the maximum admitted under the law, and additional polling station staff will be used. Melescanu added that the Foreign Ministry urged the Central Electoral Bureau to analyse whether opening more polling stations abroad was a legal option, because according to the Ministry, this can only be done by derogation from or amendments to the current legislation. In the first election round, on November the 2nd, the reportedly insufficient number of polling stations abroad and the lengthy procedures prevented many Romanians from voting. This entailed protests in major European cities and solidarity rallies in Romania, followed on Monday by the resignation of Titus Corlatean as Foreign Minister.
ANTI-CORRUPTION – The Bucharest Court of Appeals Tuesday postponed the trial of a petition filed by businessman Dan Voiculescu, founder of the Conservative Party in the ruling coalition in Romania. Voiculescu requested the cancellation of the 10-year prison sentence he was given in early August, in a case involving the privatisation of the Food Research Institute, in which Voiculescu was found guilty of influence peddling and money laundering. The case concerned the fraudulent privatisation of the Bucharest-based Institute, which was acquired by a holding owned by Dan Voiculescu. The Institute’s assets were greatly under-appraised, with damages put at more than 60 million euros. In another development, the National Anti-Corruption Directorate requested that the Chamber of Deputies authorised the house search, arrest and detention of the Liberal Deputy Mircea Rosca, accused of influence peddling. Rosca is probed into for the illegal procurement of land in the Azuga mountain resort. Also on Tuesday, the former chief of the Romanian Professional Football League Dumitru Dragomir was sent to court, alongside 40 other people, under charges of tax evasion, embezzlement and money laundering. Damages are put at more than 5 million euros, and Dragomir is also accused of unlawful sale of television rights on football games.
IMF – The IMF Tuesday urged Romania not to jeopardise the progress it has made over the past few years in terms of keeping expenses in check, considering that the Government will apparently end the programme conducted with the international financial institution next year. This statement, according to Mediafax news agency, was made on Tuesday in Sofia, by the IMF representative for Romania and Bulgaria, Guillermo Tolosa. He mentioned Romania committed to strengthen its fiscal situation, and added that the current stand-by agreement between the IMF and Romania will come to an end next year. The institution has suspended talks on the current agreement until after the elections. The European Commission warned on November the 4th that the Romanian Government will have to raise some taxes or cut expenditure in order to offset the drop in budget revenues expected in 2015 because of the reduction of social security contributions and excises, otherwise the budget deficit will go up to 2.8% of the GDP.
EU COURT RULING – The European Commission and the British PM David Cameron Tuesday hailed the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union, under which Member States are not bound to provide welfare assistance to the citizens coming from another Member State only in order to obtain such assistance. According to Reuters, the Court verdict reinforces the British PM’s efforts to fight the so-called “welfare tourism”. The Court in Luxemburg ruled in favour of Germany, in a case involving a Romanian immigrant who had settled in Leipzig in 2011. She sued the local authorities for failing to provide her and her son with the welfare benefits granted to German citizens. The European Court found that Berlin made the right decision in the case of this immigrant, who had never tried to find employment in Germany and had never been employed in Romania, either.
UKRAINE – The risk of the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine getting worse is rising, Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for the OSCE said in Kiev on Tuesday. According to him, the clashes between the governmental forces and the separatists have not ceased, two months after a truce agreement was signed in Minsk. Kiev accuses Russia of having sent a new military convoy to eastern Ukraine, whereas Moscow denies having deployed troops or weapons. According to the OSCE, more than 4,000 people died in Ukraine since the conflict broke out in April.
