October 15, 2013 UPDATE
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România Internațional, 15.10.2013, 19:27
The European Commission Tuesday resumed payments to Romania for the projects funded under the Operational Programme on Increasing Economic Competitiveness, which had been suspended until last week. The announcement was made in Brussels on Tuesday by Shirin Wheeler, spokesperson for the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn. She said payments worth 196 million euros had been suspended since December 2012. The money will be primarily spent on energy and research projects, as well as for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The EU finance ministers convening in Luxembourg on Tuesday approved the establishment of a single bank supervision mechanism, but tough negotiations are ahead over other aspects of the banking union, designed to prevent further debt crises in Europe, France Presse reports. The European Central Bank will be running the supervision mechanism, with authority over all banks in the euro-zone and the financial institutions in other EU member states that choose to participate. The mechanism will be operational in one year’s time. On the other hand, by end-2013, the EU ministers must reach an agreement on the second key element of the planned banking union, namely the single resolution mechanism, which will regulate the closure of failing banks.
In the central Romanian city of Sibiu, the Astra Documentary Film Festival, the most important of its kind in Romania, continued on Tuesday with the premiere of The Unit, in the presence of the author – Maria- Cătălina Andrieş. The screening of Lech Kowalski’s Drill Baby Dril will be followed by a Q&A session with the director. The anniversary edition of the festival is unprecedeted in terms of participation, with 1,350 documentaries entered by 70 countries from all 6 continents. Hundreds of documentary professionals will be present in Sibiu until Sunday.
