2 February 2019, UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 02.02.2019, 18:40

2019 budget. The budget bill for
this year will be discussed in a government meeting on Tuesday, the finance
minister Eugen
Teodorovici has
said. Published on the website of the finance ministry, the bill provides for a
5.5% economic growth rate, an inflation rate of 2.8% and a deficit level of
2.5% of the GDP. Additional funds are earmarked to the health, transport and education
ministries, while the budgets of the ministries for the business environment,
communications and energy are to decrease. Municipal mayors are unhappy with
the fact that the local administration is to incur large part of the social
spending previously covered by the central budget.

Treaty. Russian president Vladimir Putin has said his country will
suspend participation in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in response to the decision of the United States
to pull out from this treaty and which has entered into force on the same day,
France Presse news agency reports. Previously, US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo said the US would suspend the accord in 6 months unless Russia destroyed
its missiles and equipment that are in breach of the 1987 agreement. Washington
blames Moscow for creating a system of missiles able to strike the European
capitals, which runs counter to the terms of the treaty. Russia says in
response that these missiles have a range of 480 km and are in compliance. NATO
has voiced firm support for the decision of the United States and says it is
looking into the military consequences of the violation of the treaty, trying
to convince Russia to respect the conditions. Romania, which is holding the
rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, has said through its
foreign minister Teodor Melescanu that Europeans want to keep the treaty in
place on condition it is respected.

EU-Japan. The EU-Japan Economic Partnership
Agreement came into force on 1st February. According to a release of
the European Commission representation in Bucharest, companies and consumers
across Europe and Japan can now take advantage of the biggest free trade area
in the world. The accord eliminates most duties paid annually by EU companies
exporting to Japan, worth 1 billion euros, and once the agreement is fully
applied, Japan will eliminate customs duties on 97% of the products imported
from the EU. 271 companies from Romania export to Japan, 66% of which are small
and medium sized companies, and almost 22,000 jobs are supported by these
exports.

Trade. The London Stock Exchange has
opened its first office in Bucharest. The ceremony was attended by the British
foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, who emphasised that bilateral trade exchanges are
on the rise, reaching 4 billion euros. He expressed hope that this trend will
continue after Brexit and that economic relations between the two countries
will continue to develop, recalling that around 5,000 British companies have
invested over 1.5 billion euros in the Romanian economy.

Transport.
The Road Transport Union in Romania and similar associations
in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Hungary have asked the
European Parliament to postpone the amendment of the European regulations in
the field and which form part of the first Mobility Package. The seven national
associations say the planned regulations are discriminatory and put
administrative and financial obstacles for road transporters from the east of
the European Union, who risk being excluded from the European market. Transport
associations say the debates on this topic in the European Parliament in
Strasbourg should be postponed because they would be distorted by the upcoming
European elections.

Award. The winners of the BBC Audio Drama Awards will be announced on Sunday evening at an event hosted by the Radio Theatre at BBC Broadcasting House London. A Radio Romania production entitled The Confessionby Fyodor Dostoevsky, adapted by Doina Papp and produced by Ilinca Stihi is one of the three finalists vying for the Best European Drama Award.

Handball. The Romanian women’s
handball champions CSM Bucharest have defeated the Slovenian side Krim Mercator Ljubljana at home 32-26
in a Group 2 match as part of the Champions League Main Round. The group also
includes the Hungarian sides Györi and Ferencvaros,
the
Norwegian side Vipers Kristiansand and the German side Thiringer HC.

Tennis. The all-Romanian pair Irina Begu and Monica Niculescu
have reached the doubles final of the WTA tournament in Hua Hin, in Thailand,
worth 250,000 dollars in prize money. They defeated the Chinese-Croatian pair Xinyun
Han and Darija Jurak in the semifinals. On Sunday, Begu and Niculescu will face
the Russian-Chinese pair Ana Blinkova and Yafan Wang. Niculescu, who is
31-years-old and occupies the 66th place in the world doubles ranking,
has won 8 WTA doubles titles and has played 16 finals, while Begu has won 8
titles and has been a runner-up in 7 finals. They won a title together in 2012
in Hobart and also played the final in Luxembourg in 2012 and Wuhan and Moscow
in 2015.