May 18, 2014 UPDATE
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Valentin Țigău, 18.05.2014, 19:13
The President of Romania Traian Basescu hopes that next month a decision will be taken regarding Romania’s Schengen accession in terms of its air and sea borders. While in the north-eastern Romanian city of Iaşi, President Basescu also said that in 2015 the process should be completed to include Romania’s land borders. These statements were made during a discussion on Romania’s EU integration, and the President said the next steps the country is to make in the medium run are the Schengen accession and the adoption of the single currency. Early this month the government announced that the date targeted for Romania’s shift to the European currency is January 1st, 2019.
The motion of censure tabled by the Liberal Party in opposition in Romania will be discussed in Parliament after the EP election due on May 25th. The announcement was made by the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Valeriu Zgonea. In the motion, submitted this week, the Liberals criticise the government, made up of the Social Democratic Party, the National Union for the Progress of Romania, the Conservative Party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, for delaying measures designed to reduce the tax burden. The Liberals also say the Social Democrat PM Victor Ponta is influenced by local political leaders.
The Romanian Foreign Ministry warns that several countries in the Balkans and Central Europe are affected by heavy rainfalls. The warning particularly refers to Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where at least 20 people died. The Romanian Foreign Ministry recommends travellers to get information on the state of the roads and to avoid trips to the regions affected by the bad weather. The heavy rainfalls have also caused problems in Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Bulgaria.
Romania’s gymnastics teams won a total of nine medals (2 gold, 5 silver and 2 bronze) in the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria. The competition concluded on Sunday with the seniors’ floor final, in which the Romanian Larisa Iordache and Italy’s Vanessa Ferrari won the gold medal, and Diana Bulimar came out fourth. Iordache won two other medals on Sunday, silver in the beam final and bronze in the vault event. Adding to these is the most important medal, gold in the teams final, where Romania became the European champion for the seventh time.
