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| THE WEEK IN REVIEW: 9-15/06/2008 |
| (2008-06-13) |
| Last updated: 2008-06-21 15:52 EET |
Good news from Brussels: Romania is no longer on the European Commission list of countries for which the commission recommends the start of the excessive deficit procedure. Despite Brussels’ rather pessimistic forecasts at the start of the year, Romania’s budget deficit is below the critical threshold of 3%. However, the Commission has made several other recommendations to Bucharest. At the microphone is the spokeswoman for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Amelia Torres has more:
”The European Commission advises the Romanian government to strengthen fiscal policies and to go ahead with the reforms. On April the 28th, the Commission estimated that Romania’s budget deficit would stand at 3.7% of the GDP in 2009, and consequently it would exceed the 3% threshold, but the commission’s forecasts were based on current factual data, fiscal estimations and scenarios. Consequently, we wait for the forecasts included in the 2009 draft budget.”
Romanian finance minister, Varujan Vosganian agrees that the budget deficit should be reduced, but he considers that this can’t be achieved overnight. According to Vosganian, “when Romania enters the Euro corridor, its budget deficit should be below 1%.” However, the governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isarescu believes the budget deficit will be below 2% of the GDP this year, because Romania has a growing economy.
According to European Commissioner for Regional Policy Danuta Hubner, Bucharest should step up the process of absorbing European funds under pre-accession programs to convince the European Commission that Romania can use larger amounts of money in the future.
”I would like to see Romania using more European money, I’m mainly talking about the ISPA projects which were carried out during the pre-accession period. It is very important to boost Romania’s capacity to absorb ISPA funds and thus give a strong signal to the Commission that Romania can absorb a larger amount of money than that allotted through structural funds for the 2007-2013 period.”
Romania should draft as many eligible projects as possible, for the commission to be able to immediately replace a project, if it doesn’t meet all standards set by Brussels. Commissioner Danuta Hubner:
“For the absorption and the investment of all funds available to Romania, we should have as many projects at European standards as possible, so that a project which does not meet certain criteria can be immediately replaced by another one. It would be ideal to have much more projects than the money available to Romania.”
The analysis of the first 9 months since the start of the Romanians’ Health Condition Assessment Program, made public this week by health minister, Eugen Nicolaescu shows that life-threatening ailments in Romania continue to be diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. More than 9.5 million people, of which 11% have no health insurance, went to their family doctors to have the annual compulsory tests. Specialists have included among the main causes of these ailments: the consumption of fat foodstuffs, alcohol and smoking. According to Minister Nicolaescu the large number of people with a high risk of cervical, breast and colono-rectal cancers calls for the introduction of screening tests for the early discovery of these diseases. These tests are to be introduced on October the 1st, at the earliest.
Romania and Italy have signed an agreement on the repatriation of Romanian underage children living alone in Italy. Most of them have been taken from the streets or from the care of parents accused of having maltreated them and placed in specialised centres. According to Italian estimates, around 23 hundred children are in this situation. One problem is that many of them have already been included in the Italian adoption system. The Romanian authorities say, though, that the adoption procedures initiated in Italy are illegal, and Romanian children must return home. The agreement is therefore establishing a nunmber of general rules for the two states to follow. Among other things, the agreement stipulates the setting up of a joint experts team to establish common working procedures and to identify the institutions in charge of applying the repatriation procedures for the Romanian underage who live unaccompanied on Italian soil.
Members of 14 European royal families, among whom Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and Austria, spent a few days in Romania at the invitation of King Mihai 1st and queen Ana of Romania, who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. The Diamond Wedding was celebrated for 3 days in Bucharest and at the Peles Castle in Sinaia, central Romania, through both private and public events. Mihai 1st marriage to Queen Ana marked the beginning of a 40 year long exile. The ceremony took place on June 10th, 1948, in Greece, just 6 months after the forceful abdication of the former sovereign of Romania.
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