March 26, 2014
A roundup of domestic and international news.
România Internațional, 26.03.2014, 12:00
The Board of the International Monetary Fund is today assessing the first two evaluation reports of the precautionary accord signed with Romania last year. After their latest mission in Bucharest, this February, the IMF experts announced Romania met all technical criteria set by the Fund, except for decreasing the state-owned companies’ arrears. The IMF asked Romanian authorities to downsize these companies’ workforce. The Romanian government has pledged to fully or partially pay the debts of railway and road companies owned by the state and to declare insolvent and even bankrupt several other highly indebted companies.
The Romanian government is today discussing ways to curb hikes in energy prices. The projects, to be conducted on the natural gas and electricity markets, are aimed at keeping the industry competitive this year as well, prime minister Victor Ponta has said. Consequently, the reference market price for natural gas will be 230 dollars per one thousand cubic meters, the same as in January 1st. According to prime minister Ponta, a government decision on the renewable energy quota is to be taken later today.
In Romania, today is the last day when political parties and independents can submit their candidacies to the Central Election Bureau for the euro parliamentary elections due on May 25. Election results can be contested as of March 28. Romania will have 32 representatives in the next European Parliament. Opinion polls show that the ruling alliance, made up of the Social Democratic Party, the Conservative Party and the National Union for the Progress of Romania is likely to win the euro-parliamentary elections with about 40% of Romanians’ votes, while their government partners, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania might get between 5% and 7%. The National Liberal Party, in opposition, might win 15%-to 17% of the votes, followed by the Democratic Liberal Party and the People’s Movement Party, with some 10% each.
Russian troops stationed in the Moldovan breakaway region of Transdniester have carried out manoeuvres on Tuesday. Several hundreds of Russian military have conducted anti-terror exercises and simulated a military defence operation of their base, the Interfax news agency quoted Oleg Koscetkov, a spokesman for Russia’s Western Military Command, as saying. NATOs Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Gen. Philip Breedlove on Sunday voiced his concern at the fact that Transdniester might become President Vladimir Putin’s next target, after Russia had absorbed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
United States President, Barack Obama, is today attending in Brussels an European Union — United States summit, on the crisis in Ukraine and the future transatlantic free-trade agreement. Also today Obama is having a meeting with the NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen to discuss the situation in Ukraine. Belgium in the second stage of the American leaders European tour, after The Hague, where he attended the Nuclear Security Summit. The Western leaders, who met in the Dutch city, reiterated their support for Ukraine.
