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| The Week in Review 08-14/05/2011 |
| (2011-05-13) |
| Last updated: 2011-05-16 13:31 EET |
Romania’s GDP increased two quarters in a row, which means that technically, the country is now out of recession, after two years of economic crisis. The GDP in the first quarter of 2011 was 0.6% higher than in the 4th quarter of 2010.
In the last quarter of 2010 the GDP registered a 0.1% increase. These statistics confirm the optimism showed by managers in the real economy, says the Secretary General of the Association of Business People in Romania, Cristian Parvan. He has said however, that the country escaping recession is not noticeable at the level of the population.
The announcement made by the National Institute for Statistics comes just days after IMF, EU and World Bank experts concluded the first assessment mission of the 5.4 billion Euro precautionary agreement, signed with Romania in March. Bucharest will be able to access the money only in exceptional situations.
The head of the IMF mission, Jeffrey Franks has further details:”There are visible signs that the economy has begun to recover and resume growth. It might reach some 1.5% in 2011, backed by massive exports and the gradual improvement of domestic demand. The growth rate is expected to increase significantly in 2012, up to between 3.7 and 4%. However, inflation has increased faster than estimated, due to the pressure exerted by the rising price of food and fuel on the international market. Although it is estimated that inflation will go down in the second half of the year, we believe that in late 2011, the inflation rate will exceed 5%, the target set by the National Bank of Romania.”
The new agreement provides for the payment of debts to the private sector, the restructuring of state owned companies, reducing losses in the energy sector and transportation, as well as the gradual elimination of subsidies for electricity and natural gas, granted to firms and the general population. Both sides also agreed to gradually liberalize the price of energy and gas, increase public investment and step up the absorption of community funds.
Bucharest should convince EU member states that progress made in the field of the judiciary is “sustainable and irreversible”, if Romania wants to join the Schengen area. This was the message conveyed to Romanians by Dutch minister for European Affairs, Ben Knapen, on a visit to Bucharest. He said a positive report on the legal system, issued by the European Commission, was not enough for the Netherlands to support Romania’s Schengen accession. Earlier, the President of the European Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, Gunther Krichbaum, said Germany would support Romania and Bulgaria’s Schengen accession, if the report to be issued by the European Commission in summer was a positive one.
Scheduled for March 2011, the two countries’ accession to Schengen has been postponed, because of the reservations showed by France and Germany. The two countries noted the lack of progress in the field of justice and in the fight against organized crime.
Romania wants Turkmenistan to be a part of the Nabucco project, and wants a political agreement signed between this country and the EU. Romanian president Traian Basescu made this statement after the meeting he held in Bucharest with his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbangulî Berdîmuhamedov, who said that Romania acts as a bridge between his country and the EU. The Nabucco gas pipeline is meant to carry gas from the Caspian Sea area to Europe. The two heads of state stated that cultural and economic cooperation between their countries should be broader, as should collaboration in combating extremism, terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime.
One Romanian soldier was killed on Tuesday in Zabul, southern Afghanistan, a Taleban stronghold, in an IED attack during a patrol mission. Tuesday also saw the burial of a second Romanian soldier who had been killed in a similar attack in the south east of the country. 19 Romanian soldiers have died in Afghanistan since 2003. Most of the Romanian contingent, around 1,770 strong, including soldiers and their officers, are there as part of the NATO led coalition forces.
2011 is an anniversary year for the Romanian Royal House, which held a number of events to mark the occasion. On May 10th they celebrated 155 years since King Carol I of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen House of Germany, was proclaimed king of Romania. 15 years later, Romania became a kingdom, and during this reign it became a modern, independent state. His successor to the throne, Ferdinand I, united Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania in 1918, after WWI. Ferdinand’s grandson, the last Romanian sovereign, Michael I, turns 90 years of age this year.
He was forced to abdicate in 1947, and was exiled after Romania came under Soviet occupation, which imposed a Communist government. The former sovereign returned to the country after the anti-Communist revolution of 1989. This week, HM Michael I was granted the ‘Freedom of the City of London’ medal for ‘shortening the WWII by at least six months’, and saving thousands of Romanian Jews.
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