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| The Week in Review 19-25/06/2011 |
| (2011-06-25) |
| Last updated: 2011-06-27 14:07 EET |
Politicians in Bucharest row over Romania’s territorial reorganization and recently proposed constitutional amendments.
Politicians in Bucharest this week have not yet managed to reach a consensus on Romania’s administrative territorial organization and on amending the Constitution. The opposition rejects the draft reform of the Liberal Democrats in the government coalition, providing for the 41 existing counties to be replaced by 8 mega-counties. The Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, the UDMR, part of the government coalition, wants 16 regions, one of which covers the present counties of Harghita and Covasna, which are home to the majority of the ethnic Hungarian population in Romania. If the UDMR rejects the Liberal Democratic project, Romanian president Traian Basescu has a solution:
“I said that the most that could happen if you don’t want to reorganize the country into larger counties is for the two counties of Harghita and Covasna to stay the same. However, the two counties are still relying on money from the government. If they refuse, devolved ministries will still be organized on larger areas”.
That means that each mega-county will have a single police , education and health inspectorate; as for amending the constitution, Traian Basescu said that the draft that he had introduced in Parliament still contained two proposals that were rejected by the Constitutional Court, one on politicians’ wealth and one on the conditions of parliamentary immunity. The opposition wants the constitutional amendments to be debated by after a new parliament has been elected.
Romania takes a hard look at the crisis in Greece
On the first day, the Summer European Council in Brussels, attended by Romanian president Traian Basescu, focused on the economy, with emphasis being laid on the situation in Greece. European leaders reiterated their commitment towards helping Athens come out of its debt crisis. Greece is in a critical situation, even though it took out a 110 billion Euro loan from the IMF and the EU in exchange for tough austerity measures.
On Friday, Athens agreed with the institutions it borrowed from on the latest adjustments to its austerity platform, which extends to late 2014. The plan, which has to pass in the Greek parliament by June 30, is paramount for Greece getting a new loan that may help it weather the crisis, avoiding ripples throughout the Eurozone.
The question is how the crisis affects Romania. According to financial analysts, the recent depreciation of the Leu against the Euro is temporary, against the background of worries regarding Greece’s future.
Right now the Euro exchanges for 4.2 Romanian lei. Financial experts believe that during this period investors will switch profits from the national currency into Euros or dollars, profits which they will send home. Given that, experts do not see a good future for the Romanian leu. Here is financial analyst Radu Craciun:
“As long as there is a suspicion that a domino effect will occur if Greece resorts to refinancing, which would also affect Romania, the future of the leu does not look good”.
European Member of Parliament Adrian Severin from Romania has his immunity lifted pending investigations
The European Parliament lifted the immunity of Romanian EMP Adrian Severin, who is under investigation for bribe taking in exchange for lobbying. This vote allows the Romanian authorities to start a criminal investigation. The application to lift immunity for Severin, a former foreign minister during the ‘90s, was filed by the authorities in Bucharest, which launched an investigation after the British newspaper Sunday Times had broken the story.
According to the paper, the Romanian European official accepted the offer of one hundred thousand Euro in exchange for pushing certain amendments to the existing legislation. Also involved were two other EMPs, one Slovenian and the other Austrian, who have resigned since the scandal.
Adrian Severin, who claims that the scandal is a fabrication meant to slander him, stayed on as an independent member of the European Parliament, in spite of the pressure put on him to resign. The European Socialist group expelled him from all his official positions within.
The democrats in the Republic of Moldova win by a narrow margin the runoff in the local elections
Voters in the Republic of Moldova showed once again their pro-Western leaning in the recent run off in the local elections. In the second round of local elections in Moldova, the Alliance for European Integration won 377 mayor seats across the country.
The alliance includes the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party. That was a landslide victory over the Communists, who won only 86 mayor seats. 33 independents were also elected as local administrators. However, the major target of those elections was Chisinau City Hall, a seat won by Liberal Dorin Chirtoaca, who got 50.6% of the votes. His opponent, Communist Igor Dodon, won 49.4% of the votes.
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