The Week in Review, July 28 – August 2

A look back at the week's top stories

România Internațional, 02.08.2014, 14:10

Southern and southwestern Romania hit hard by flooding

The torrential rain that affected southern and southwestern Romania in the past few days caused a lot of damage and made victims among the locals. Over two thousand houses and households, in two hundred towns and villages have been affected and thousands of hectares of farmland have been swept by waters. Over one thousand people have been evacuated. Road traffic has been disrupted, several segments of national, county and village roads have been completely destroyed and tens of bridges have disappeared, swept by the waters. Strong winds have downed electricity poles and power lines causing outages. Fire fighters, intervention teams and gendarmes have been deployed to the flood-stricken regions, to rescue people and evacuate water from households. Local and central authorities are on the alert and measures have been taken to warn people in the areas exposed to flooding.

First budget rectification, approved

The first adjustment of the 2015 budget is positive, which means that no cuts will be operated. The ministries of health, education, defense, economy, transport and labor have been allotted larger amounts for 2015. Also, the Standing Electoral Authority will get extra funds for the staging of November’s presidential elections. The Fiscal Council says that this budget rectification is in fact transferring the financial burden on the next years, because it overestimates budget revenues to be collected by yearend. The Council has also specified that the budget rectification does not comprise the impact of decreasing employers’ social security contribution by 5%, a measure that the Government plans to enforce as of October 1st.

Victor Ponta, officially the Social Democrats’ candidate for the presidential seat

Romania’s Social Democrat prime minister has made public his intention to run for president in the November elections, saying he will officially ask for his party’s support at a National Council meeting next week. Ponta also relies on the Conservative Party and the National Union for the Progress of Romania, two small parties that are part of the ruling coalition. The right wing has also started its preparations for the presidential elections. Klaus Iohannis, the mayor of Sibiu and the leader of the centre-right National Liberal Party, the main opposition party in this country, was nominated to run for president on behalf of his party. Kelemen Hunor, the leader of the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, in the government, and Cristian Diaconescu, from the pro-presidential, centre-right People’s Movement Party, will also run for president.

Bucharest’s reaction to the protests of Romanian ethnics in Cernauti

The Romanian Foreign Ministry has voiced concern at the situation that generated protests by ethnic Romanians in west Ukraine, who expressed their discontent with Kiev’s decision to call a new partial military mobilization. Hundreds of Romanian youth were called to arms, and their parents fear that they will be sent to fight against the pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country. The locals blocked the roads and threatened they would not leave until the regional authorities cancel the orders issued after the Parliament of Ukraine approved a partial mobilization last week.

Dacian Ciolos, Romania’s proposal for a new mandate of European commissioner for agriculture or for the regional development portfolio

Romania’s Government has proposed Dacian Ciolos for a new mandate of European commissioner for agriculture. President Traian Basescu supports the proposal. Aged 45, Dacian Ciolos has been a European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development since February 2010. Ciolos has been the initiator of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. In Romania, he was an agriculture minister for two years, in 2007 and 2008.

Four Romanian football teams in the third preliminary tour of the Europa League and the Champions’ League

Three Romanian football teams on Thursday played in the first leg of the third preliminary tour of the Europa League. The best result was obtained by Astra Giurgiu, which defeated Czech side Slovan Liberec at home 3-0. Petrolul Ploiesti also faced a Czech team. Coach Lucescu’s team finished with a 1-all tie at home against Victoria Plzen. The other Romanian team fighting for a place in the Europa League play-offs, CFR Cluj, played on foreign turf against Dinamo Minsk of Belarus, losing nil to 1. On Wednesday, in the third preliminary tour of the Champions League, Steaua tied 2-all in an away game in Kazakhstan against local team Aktobe.