The Week in Review – January 12-16

Click here for a roundup of the week's main stories.

România Internațional, 17.01.2015, 14:00

Political agreement on defence

Romania’s new president Klaus Iohannis has secured the agreement of all political parties in parliament to allocate at least 2% of the GDP to defence every year from 2017 until 2027. The agreement, which was signed on Tuesday, comes amid tensions generated by the situation in the neighbouring Ukraine. A member of the European Union and NATO, Romania should not rely solely on its allies to ensure its own security, says Klaus Iohannis:

“We have a duty to treat the situation in the region with maturity and show that we are a responsible nation. We therefore need to provide the army with the necessary means and funds for training and modern equipment.”

Iohannis believes this will ensure the predictability of military spending, in particular with regard to the training of the troops and the strategic programmes for the army’s equipping.

President Klaus Iohannis travels to Brussels on his first official foreign visit since taking office

Romania’s decision to increase defence funding has been hailed by the NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg during talks with president Klaus Iohannis. The latter travelled to Brussels on his first official visit since taking office. During his talks with the representatives of the European institutions, Iohannis has also encountered support for his country’s joining the Schengen area, one of Romania’s most important foreign policy goals. Despite meeting all Schengen entry criteria, Romania has been denied access for lack of sufficient progress in the reform of the judiciary. President Iohannis had talks with the head of the European Commission Jean Claude Junker about the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification ahead of the publication of a new report in a few days’ time on the progress made by Romania concerning justice. Klaus Iohannis:

“We have agreed that this will encourage us to say that in the following years, during our terms, we will bring this procedure to a successful conclusion, given that Romania has made significant progress in consolidating its institutions, the implementation of structural reforms and the consolidation of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.”

The director of the Romanian Intelligence Service talks about the likelihood of terrorist attacks in Romania

There is no major risk of a terrorist attack in Romania, so the Romanian Intelligence Service has not raised the country’s terrorism threat level after the attacks in France. Romania has, however, taken a series of additional security measures regarding the protection of possible targets, a better control of the people crossing the border and a better picture of what goes on across Romania in terms of intelligence, said the director of the Romanian Intelligence Service, George Maior. He revealed that a number of terrorist attacks had been averted in Romania as well and said Europe would most likely be the target of more attacks. George Maior also said the European secret services are prepared for a new terror threat level, but that there is no absolute security because prevention cannot be achieved sometimes.

Visits to Bucharest by envoys of two of Romania’s major strategic partners

High-ranking officials representing two of Romania’s major strategic partners, the US and Great Britain, have been to Bucharest this week, for talks with Romanian decision-makers. The talks between the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs of the US Department of State, Victoria Nuland, and Romanian officials focused on the strategic partnership between this country and the US. The collaboration under this agreement is to be extended to also cover the economic field, not just the military one. On the occasion, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis hailed the US companies’ interest in this sector, and encouraged their presence on the Romanian market. In turn, the US official said that Romania had made significant progress with regard to the reform of the judiciary and the fight against corruption. Also in Bucharest, the British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond held talks with his Romanian counterpart Bogdan Aurescu, mostly about fighting terrorism. The Romanian side stressed, among other things, that it’s important for the member states to observe the principle of free movement of the work force within the EU.

Priorities for the development of road infrastructure in Romania

The Romanian transport minister Ioan Rus has presented the 2015-2016 priorities for the development of road infrastructure and the Transport Master Plan until 2030. Only 700 km of highway are operational in Romania, placing this country on one of the lowest positions in terms of road density. According to minister Rus, the highway network in Romania will be extended by 50 km this year, and by another 200 km in 2016. He has stated that the road infrastructure in Romania has been poorly developed in the past years not because of lack of money, but because of bad projects, which have lacked structure and effectiveness. The Transport Master Plan envisages the building of over 700 km of highway and some 1,800 km of express roads by 2030, at an estimated cost of 30 billion Euros.

January 15th, Romania’s National Culture Day

Since 2010 January 15th, the birthday of Romania’s national poet Mihai Eminescu, has also been the National Culture Day. This year, when we also celebrate 165 years since Eminescu’s birth, many solemn sessions, concerts, exhibitions, book launches and film screenings have been hosted by all culture institutions in the country, and also by Romanian cultural centres abroad. In an interview to Radio Romania, the Romanian Minister of Culture Ioan Vulpescu talked about the under- funding that culture in this country is still suffering from. In his opinion, one potential solution is a national strategy for this field.

“It’s been 25 years since the Revolution and we still lack a strategy that, beyond and despite any election cycles, should promote the values of Romanian culture and civilisation, both in the country and abroad”.

Romanian culture is in desperate need of coherence and creativity, of an effective management and a proper use of its own resources, the line minister has also stated.