April 9, 2022
A roundup of local and international news.
Newsroom, 09.04.2022, 13:39
REFUGEES – More than 76 thousand people entered Romania on Friday, through the border checkpoints, of whom 8,623 Ukrainian citizens, down by 5.9% as against the previous day, the Border Police General Inspectorate has announced today. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, almost 660 thousand refugees have entered Romania. Most of them only transited the country on their way to Western Europe.
ELECTIONS — France holds presidential elections on Sunday. The 49 million eligible voters will pick their favourite from among 12 candidates, four women and eight men. The most likely scenario for the runoff is incumbent president Emmanuel Macron running against Marine Le Pen, a representative of the far right. Opinion polls have recently shown Macron only 3-4 points ahead of Le Pen, from 12 points in mid-February, which means that some 26%-27% of the people would vote for Macron and 23% for his contender. Coming out third in opinion polls, with 16%, is the far left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon.
GAS — The ruling coalition in Bucharest has sped up talks on modifying the offshore law that regulates the exploitation of the natural gas reserves that Romania has in the Black Sea. The National Liberal Party, The Social Democratic Party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania have agreed on a final version of the law. The document will be debated by Parliament next week and is to be adopted through emergency procedure. Thus, the Romanian state should receive at least 60% of the profit obtained after the extraction of natural gas, while private companies would get 40%. Energy Minister Virgil Popescu has recently said that as of this year, Romania will benefit an additional 1 billion cubic meters of natural gas by exploiting the deposits in the Black Sea.
RATING – Fitch Ratings has put Romania’s long-term foreign currency issue default rating (IDR) at BBB- with a negative outlook, the agency said in a statement. The negative outlook reflects “continued uncertainty regarding the implementation of policies to address structural fiscal imbalances” over the medium term and the impact of the Ukraine war and energy crisis on Romanias economic, fiscal and external performance, the agency said. Fitch Ratings expects Romania’s GDP growth to slow down to 2.1% in 2022 (from 5.9% in 2021), primarily reflecting a slowdown in private consumption and exports. Investment dynamics is expected to accelerate in 2023, which combined with the assumption of a normalisation of external trade and supply chains, will lift economic growth to 4.8%, the agency also said.
ARREST – Former Romanian Transport Minister, Elena Udrea, is in the custody of the Bulgarian Police and may be extradited to Romania next week. On Friday, Bulgarian judges postponed ruling on the extradition request because the European extradition warrant was not translated into Bulgarian. Udrea left Romania on Thursday, hours before the ruling of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, which maintained the initial 6-year prison sentence for bribe-taking and abuse of office. Udrea has also been sentenced by a court of first instance to 8 years in prison for the election campaign of 2009, and she is a defendant in a third case as well. The former minister first rose to power as an advocate of the fight against corruption and the chief aide to ex-president Traian Băsescu, himself recently confirmed by a Court as a former collaborator of the Securitate, the communist political police. (EE)
