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| The Week in Review 19/02/2011 |
| (2011-02-18) |
| Last updated: 2011-02-21 12:20 EET |
Good news from the National Institute of Statistics. In 2010, the Romanian economy fell 1.2%, less than the authorities in Bucharest and the IMF expected. This is a good sign, considering that in 2009, after 10 years of growth, the Romanian economy fell drastically, by 7.1%. The annual rate of inflation went down one percent, from 8 to 7%, even though the price for certain products and services went up significantly. According to the National Institute, the worst price hikes were for fuel, thermal energy, fruit, vegetables and sugar. The Romanian economy fared better late 2010. After slight growth in the fourth quarter, confirmed by the NIS, the economy could technically come out of recession if this trend is maintained in the first three months of 2011. At the same time, the Eurostat agency said that Romania saw a slight economic growth in the last quarter of 2010, which was the smallest in the EU.
Romania has every chance of coming out of recession in April, Prime Minister Emil Boc estimated, believing that the country has stabilized economically. He also said that unemployment started falling, and that the economy now needs re-launching. To this end, the government adopted a number of measures. Boc said that the Scrap Car replacement program will continue in 2011.
Here is the Prime Minister: “Firstly we will continue to scrap old cars, secondly, we will support the Romanian car industry, and last but not least we will contribute to reducing pollution. I am saying in light of the fact that already 190,000 cars were scrapped in 2010, and 63,000 cars were purchased through the program. In other words, this program has fulfilled its purpose and will continue to do so”.
Starting in April, the Green House program will continue. It is a program aimed at people who install heating systems using renewable sources. Local authorities and city halls who take out loans for co-financing projects using EU funds will get state guarantees up to a ceiling of 300 million Euro. The state will back up these loans up to 80%. This measure aims at improving the absorption of European funds.
Senate chairman Mircea Geoana pleaded in Paris in favour of Romania’s and Bulgaria’s inclusion in the Schengen space, initially set for March, a deadline which is now highly unlikely to be observed. He said that France’s opposition to Bucharest’s admission is a delicate moment in bilateral relations, since Romanians have become used to having an ally and a partner in France. At the same time, France was firm in its position. Romania is still tied to Bulgaria in the Schengen issue, no matter how far it has progressed in this process, said Laurent Wauquiez, Minister for European Affairs. Even though Bucharest has complied with the technical criteria for accession, there is a political dimension to this process, and politically speaking, France, Germany, Finland, Austria, Holland and Norway said they wanted a delay. Critics claim that accession would be premature because of the two states being vulnerable in terms of illegal migration, weapon and drug smuggling as well as human trafficking, but also because they did not make enough progress in the fight against corruption. At the same time, Romania and Bulgaria have decided to create a partnership within the EU to promote common goals, such as being included in the Schengen space. The foreign policy committees in the Senate in Bucharest and Sofia have signed a joint declaration expressing the wish of the two to join the Schengen area. Romania and Bulgaria are calling for an objective assessment, saying that they complied with the technical criteria for accession.
The president of the foreign policy committee of the Chamber of deputies in Bucharest, Attilla Korodi, said: “We continue to believe that there is one thing that has to permanently be the basis for any act of enforcing an EU treaty: if the Schengen Treaty defines the criteria and a country complies with this criteria, we have to move forward and finalize the accession procedure, in our case the procedure of joining the Schengen space”.
In spite of opposition from major EU members, there are supporters of this accession. The European People’s Party, which holds the majority in the EU parliament, insists on integrating the two countries by the end of 2011. Hungary, which now holds the EU presidency, as well as Slovakia, recently confirmed their support for Romania’s and Bulgaria’s admission.
Romania this week was gripped by news around the activity of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, which exposed the level of corruption in the customs department of the Ministry of the Interior. The National Integrity Agency also started investigating the assets of 15 major trade union leaders. The investigation started 3 months ago, but only made it into the press on Tuesday, after a former customs agent accused the head of a public servant trade union that he received money from employees of customs checkpoints to intervene on their behalf when they wanted to be promoted or keep their positions. The accusations, which the union leader denied, come against the background of a sweeping investigation in customs all along the north and west of the country, on the border with the Ukraine and Serbia, which are outside the EU. This investigation resulted in dozens of arrests, and the head of the National Customs Agency was dismissed. The National Integrity Agency said that the investigation was prompted by trade union leaders failing to file their income statements, and because they appeared to have acquired unexplainable wealth. In reply, the people under investigation said that this is a concerted campaign to discredit trade unions in Romania.
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