October 4, 2013
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news.
Mihai Pelin, 04.10.2013, 12:28
Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta has today held talks in Bucharest with the European Commissioner Responsible for Internal Market and Services, Michel Barnier, who is currently on a visit to Bucharest. Ponta has underlined that efforts should be channelled, at EU level, towards the service sectors with the highest economic growth potential. Talks focussed on the digital agenda, the service market, the Banking Union and ways to improve access to regulated professions.
A special parliamentary committee is today continuing hearings on the gold exploitation project at Rosia Montana, in central Romania. Representatives of the Romanian Orthodox Church and of the Greek Catholic Church, respectively, have announced they are opposed to the project. They have expressed concern about the irreversible and toxic effects of the project on the environment as well as about its impact on the cultural heritage of the area, given that the envisaged method to exploit the gold and silver ore deposits in the area will be based on the use of cyanide. Also today, talks will be held between members on the committee and representatives of the National Geologic Institute.
The Speaker of the Romanian Senate, Liberal Crin Antonescu, on Friday accused Social-Democrat PM Victor Ponta of having spoken on behalf of the Prosecutor General, a fact which he deemed “unacceptable”. Antonescu said that Romania’s President, Traian Basescu, too, was wrong to have involved the judiciary in the conflict between the presidency and government.
The President of the Chamber of Deputies with the Romanian Parliament, Valeriu Zgonea, is today attending in Budapest an international conference entitled “Failed Austerity: New Progressive Economic Prospects in the Central and East European member states.” The initiative belongs to the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, a group in the European Parliament, and is meant to generate public debates on the economic and social policies pursued at European and global level. Attending the event are representatives of the academic and political circles, of civil society as well as journalists, who are all able to contribute to strengthening and promoting progressive ideas in these domains, sources with the Chamber of Deputies say.
US president, Barack Obama, has cancelled his Asian tour due to start next week, when he intended to participate in economic summits in the region. The cancellation of the tour was caused by the budget crisis the US is currently going through. Congress failed to reach an agreement on the 2014 budget, and in the absence of this budget, the financing of the state sector was brought to a halt, for the first time in the past 17 years. Many public institutions have suspended their activity, and some 800,000 public servants have gone on temporary, unpaid leave. The US Treasury and the IMF have warned that the US economy and the global one will be severely affected if Congress does not find a solution to go out of the budgetary deadlock.
A day of national mourning has been decreed in Italy, after a ship with 500 African migrants on board caught fire and sunk off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Over 130 people died and 200 others are reported missing. Most migrants had left Eritrea and Somalia, UN sources say. According to the mass media, some 25,000 immigrants have reached Italy’s southern coastal area, particularly Sicily and Calabria since the start of the year, their number being approximately three times higher than in 2012.
At the World Gymnastics Championships underway in Anvers, Belgium, Romanian Larisa Iordache is today participating in the all round final. Defending European champion in the balance beam event, Iordache has also qualified for the floor and beam event finals. Another Romanian, Sandra Izbasa, who is Olympic Champion, will also take part in the floor event final. In the men’s competitions, Marius Berbecar has qualified for the vault and bars events.
