The political situation in
The Social Democratic Party, the main party in the ruling coalition in
<\/p>\n
NATO meeting in Bucharest<\/strong><\/p>\n
Bucharest played host this week to the 63rd annual session of NATO Parliamentary
<\/p>\n
Romania’s
The Parliamentary Assembly of the
<\/p>\n
The
The International Monetary Fund has revised upwards its
<\/p>\n
Simona
With a run to the final of the China
A roundup of the main stories in Romania this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":124454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40944],"tags":[13794,28900,32606],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-124529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-week-in-review","tag-nato","tag-simona-halep","tag-ukraine-education-law"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nBucharest<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nBucharest, has managed to solve the extremely tense situation within the party,
\nthat risked triggering a new government reshuffle. The tensions generated by
\ndisagreements between the Social Democratic leader Liviu Dragnea and Prime
\nMinister Mihai Tudose, on whether to keep deputy PM Sevil Shhaideh and Minister
\nfor European Funds Rovana Plumb in the government, have been eased following
\nboth ministers’ decision to resign, alongside another Social Democrat, the
\nTransport Minister Razvan Cuc. Mihai Tudose has conditioned his further serving
\nas Prime Minister on the exclusion, from his Cabinet, of the ministers who have
\nan image problem. In his turn, Liviu Dragnea has said that tensions within the
\nparty have been generated by communication problems between himself and PM
\nTudose. In the first half of the year, the insubordination of the Prime
\nMinister Sorin Grindeanu to Liviu Dragnea, the Social Democratic Party’s
\ndecision maker, forced Parliament’s majority to pass a censure motion against
\nits own cabinet, something unheard of before.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nAssembly that focused on the security situation in the Black Sea area, Russia’s military build-up close to the
\nAlliance’s borders and cyber threats. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
\nhailed Romania’s major contribution to the North Atlantic Alliance and
\nemphasized the country’s participation in peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and
\nAfghanistan as well as the allocation of 2% of its GDP to defence.
\nStoltenberg also said that the Alliance did not want another Cold War or to
\nisolate Russia, but it was concerned about its military build-up and its lack
\nof transparency. In turn, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said that Romania
\nwould continue to be a trustworthy ally and dialogue partner of NATO. In his
\nopinion the North-Atlantic Partnership and NATO’s partnership with the European
\nUnion must be consolidated in the context of a deteriorating security
\nbackground. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly passed several resolutions focusing,
\namong other things, on the stability and security in the Black Sea area, the
\nEU’s tighter cooperation with NATO and on ways of turning information into
\nweapon.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nstand towards Ukraine’s education law<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nCouncil of Europe on Thursday passed a resolution that firmly criticizes
\nUkraine’s new education law that drastically restricts the national minorities’
\nrights, including the Romanian one, to education in their languages. Bucharest
\npreviously took steps towards preventing the implementation of this law.
\nRomanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu, alongside his Hungarian, Bulgarian
\nand Greek counterparts signed a letter in which they voiced their concern as
\nregards Kiev’s law, while Education Minister Liviu Pop went to Ukraine to plead
\nagainst it. Parliament in Bucharest asked for the law to be revised while
\nPresident Klaus Iohannis postponed his visit to Kiev. Almost half a million
\nethnic Romanians live in the neighbouring Ukraine, mostly in the eastern Romanian
\nterritories annexed by the former Soviet Union in 1940 following an ultimatum
\nand inherited by Ukraine, in 1991, as a successor state. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nIMF economic outlook for Romania<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\neconomic growth forecast for Romania for this year, from 4.2% to 5.5%,
\naccording to the institution’s latest report. Also, in 2018 Romania will see an
\nadvance of up to 4.4% as compared to only 3.4% forecast in April. These
\noptimistic figures have been prompted by a significant increase in investments,
\ntrade, and industrial output. Another piece of good news from the IMF is that
\nthe unemployment rate is expected to go down, to 5.3% this year and to 5.2% in
\n2018. The international financial institution has also adjusted its estimates
\nconcerning Romania’s current account deficit, from 2.8% forecast in April to 3%
\nfor this year, and from 2.5% to 2.9% for 2018. Also, according to the latest
\nWorld Economic Outlook, Romania and Iceland are expected to report the highest
\neconomic growth rate in Europe this year, of 5.5%. The IMF estimates largely
\ncoincide with the data made public by the National Statistics Institute.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nHalep becomes world no. 1 in women’s tennis<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nOpen in Beijing, Romania’s Simona Halep became the new WTA World no. 1 on
\nOctober 9, when the updated rankings were released. The 26-year-old
\nbecomes the first player representing Romania to achieve this historic
\nmilestone since the computer rankings were introduced in 1975, and will be the 25th
\nwoman overall to hold the no. 1 ranking. In the last 52 weeks, Halep
\nhas won the Madrid Open for the third Premier Mandatory title of her career,
\nand reached the final of the French Open, the Italian Open
\nand the Cincinnati Open, and the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. This
\nseason, she’s scored five Top 10 victories and has made the last eight in
\n11 of her past 13 tournaments. At the conclusion of the 2017 Wimbledon
\nChampionships, Halep became the active player with the longest streak of consecutive
\nweeks ranked inside the world’s Top 10. Halep
\nentered the Top 10 for the first time on January 27, 2014, and has been
\nthere ever since.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"