January 25, 2014
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 25.01.2014, 12:07
Romanian meteorologists have extended the orange alert for snowstorms to 18 counties in the south and south east of the country, including the capital Bucharest, until Sunday night. Another 7 counties in the southeast, east and center are under yellow alert for snowstorms. Because of the blizzard and snow road traffic has been closed on 3 highways and on several sectors of national and county roads. Rail traffic has also been disrupted and some trains have been cancelled. Also more flights from the Henri Coanda airport in Bucharest have been cancelled or postponed. The Black Sea ports are closed and traffic on the Danube — Black Sea canal is restricted. Tens of towns and villages under the orange and yellow alerts for snowstorms have been left without electricity. On the other hand, the Romanian Foreign Ministry has issued warnings for those who want to travel to Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia, where heavy snowfalls are expected.
A mission of the IMF, World Bank and the European Commission is in Bucharest until February 5th to assess the stand-by agreement concluded last year with Romania. Romania has concluded an agreement worth 4 billion euros with the IMF and the EU, but it does not intend to access the money yet. Besides the authorities, the members of the mission will also meet with representatives of political parties , trade unions, businesspeople associations, banks and civil society organizations. The talks will focus on the economic reforms priorities and the legislative framework with impact on the economy. Andrea Schaechter, the head of the IMF mission to Bucharest, says that their general impression is that Romania has so far had important performances, managing to cope with the economic crisis. Romania has reduced its fiscal deficit by more than 6.5% of the GDP, is one of the 11 member states that are no longer under the excessive deficit procedure and has reported economic growth.
The Dutch Foreign Minister, Frans Timmermans, will pay a visit to Bucharest on Monday. He will meet with the PM Victor Ponta, with his Romanian counterpart Titus Corlatean and also with civil society representatives. Talks will focus on intensifying and diversifying economic cooperation, given that most of the foreign investments in Romania have been made by the Netherlands. They will also tackle issues of common interest on the European agenda such as energy security, the EU enlargement policy, the Eastern Partnership, with focus on the Republic of Moldova. The visit of the Dutch official will take place shortly after the publication of the report of the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification for Romania and Bulgaria. We recall that the Netherlands has been repeatedly opposed to Romania’s and Bulgaria’s Schengen accession.
The EU underlined Saturday that it expected the Ukrainian power to take concrete steps towards reinstating calm in the country. At the end of his visit to Kiev, the European Commissioner for Enlargement, Stefan Füle, said he presented to his interlocutors the EU’s deep concern over the escalation of the crisis in the Ukraine. He underlined the need to put an end to violence and to fight against the authorities’ violation of human rights. Commissioner Füle met Friday with President Viktor Ianukovici who announced a government reshuffle and amendments to be made to the restrictive laws against protesters. The center of the Ukrainian capital has been occupied since the end of November last year by pro- European protesters, after the power refused a rapprochement to the EU choosing to come closer to Russia. The clashes between the radical protesters and the riot police have left behind 5 dead and hundreds of wounded.
