December 4, 2014
Click here for a roundup of Romanian and international news
România Internațional, 04.12.2014, 13:46
The IMF and the European Commission support the budget rectification approved Wednesday by the Romanian Government, the minister delegate for budget, Darius Valcov said Thursday. The rectification brings more money to the healthcare and defense ministries, among others. This positive rectification was due to a higher absorption of European funds and increased budget returns, the government official says. A joint mission of the IMF and the European Commission is in Bucharest for talks with the Romanian authorities on the draft budget law for 2015.
Romania’s gray economy is estimated at almost 29% of the GDP, more over the European average, which stands at 19%, shows a study made by the consultancy company PricewaterhouseCoopers and by Mastercard. The study also includes a set of measures for the reduction of tax evasion, measures that have already been adopted by other countries. The measures include the limitation of daily cash receipts the organization of fiscal lotteries and the compulsory use by all trade companies of cash registers connected online to the systems of the fiscal authorities. In Romania the money supply in circulation, which fuels the development of the gray economy, amounts to almost 60% of the GDP, that is 6 times more than the average amount reported in the EU.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, is in Basel, Switzerland, where he is meeting today with his Russian counterpart, Serghei Lavrov, on the sidelines of the annual OSCE ministerial council in Europe. The American official has already met with the Swiss president, Didier Burkhalter, the acting president of the OSCE in 2014. The meeting in Basel takes place 2 days after a NATO ministerial meeting held in Brussels where Russia was harshly criticized for the support granted to the separatist rebels in the east of Ukraine. The OSCE council also follows another meeting of the foreign ministers of the coalition set up to counteract the Jihadist group the Islamic State. At the OSCE ministerial council Romania is represented by the foreign minister, Bogdan Aurescu.
Romania’s president elect, Klaus Iohannis, will pay a private visit to the US from December 4th to 10th. After the November elections, Washington congratulated him for his victory and expressed the American authorities’ wish that the relations between the two countries should remain “strong”, Bucharest being considered “an important strategic partner”. The American vice-president Joe Biden also congratulated Klaus Iohannis for his victory on the phone, pointing out that the massive vote turnout was a sign of a strong and healthy democracy. Last week Klaus Iohannis paid a visit to the ex-Soviet Republic of Moldova where he met with President Nicolae Timofti.
The Romanian Foreign Ministry has hailed the announcement of the American authorities regarding a drop in the refusal rate of visa applications filed by the Romanian citizens for the first time under the 10% threshold in the 2013- 2014 fiscal year. According to a Romanian Foreign Ministry communiqué these developments consolidate the ascending trend reported in the 2010- 2014 period. Also the Romanian Foreign Ministry officials expressed hope that this trend would be maintained next year as well, as it is relevant for the continuous progress registered by Romania in terms of compliance with the criteria required for inclusion in the Visa Waiver program, which eliminates visas for the citizens who want to travel to the US.
Each nation has the inalienable right to choose its own way to develop, including Ukraine, said Thursday the Russian president Vladimir Putin, in his annual state of the nation address. The Kremlin leader has labeled the situation in Ukraine as a coup d’etat masterminded from abroad aimed at destabilizing the Russian Federation. He has given assurances that Russia has solutions, even if unorthodox, to defend itself. Putin referred to Crimea and the annexation of the peninsula by the Russian Federation, a move which he considered perfectly legal and criticized the sanctions imposed on Russia by the West. The Russian president’s discourse occurs one year after the annexation of Crimea and against the backdrop of western sanctions imposed on Russia for its intervention in Ukraine.
