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| The Week in Review |
| (2011-09-16) |
| Last updated: 2011-09-19 16:23 EET |
Romanian President, Traian Basescu, made a short official trip to Washington on Tuesday for talks with American President, Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, CIA Chief David Petraeus, and State Secretary for Defense, Leon Panetta. The trip aimed at concluding a number of bilateral agreements. The Romanian foreign minister, Teodor Baconschi, and the American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, also signed the agreement on the installation of a number of anti-missile shield facilities in Romania. According to the document, initialled in June, the shield has a defensive purpose and the interceptors in Romania will be located in the south of the country, at the military base in Deveselu. NATO welcomed the agreement, seeing it as an extremely important step towards guaranteeing European security in the face of ballistic missile proliferation. Russia, unhappy with the installation of the anti-missile shield in Europe, has once again asked for guarantees that the shield will not threaten its security. Discussions at the White House also touched on the issue of visas for Romanians wishing to travel to the United States. Given that the number of negative responses to visa requests is still high, at around 25%, Bucharest is still far from achieving its goal of eliminating visa requirements. The Americans have nevertheless promised an improvement to the criteria for visa facilitation.
The Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano, made a two-day state visit to Bucharest. During talks with his counterpart Traian Basescu, and prime minister Emil Boc, the Italian leader reassured Romania that Rome did not envisage the introduction of labour restrictions for Romanian workers. He also expressed satisfaction over the fact that Romanian communities in Italy are being consolidated, despite any possible “xenophobic tendencies”. President Basescu thanked Giorgio Napolitano for the way in which the Italian Government tried to solve issues regarding Romanian immigrants, and for acknowledging the Romanian Orthodox Church on Italian soil. The Italian Catholic Church has made over one thousand places of worship available for Romanian weekly church services.
On Wednesday the government in Bucharest sent to Parliament a draft law on the creation of a new ministry, the Ministry for European Affairs, to be run by the former European Commissioner Leonard Orban. According to Prime Minister Boc, the main mission of the new structure will be to coordinate the absorption of European funds. With an absorption rate of only 4% five years after joining the European Union, Romania is still lagging behind all the other community countries in terms of fund absorption. The opposition parties have agreed that a ministry to manage the European funds is necessary and useful, but they required that the whole government be submitted to Parliament for approval.
The European Parliament on Thursday adopted an anti-corruption resolution, with the Romanian MEP Monica Macovei as one of its initiators. The document calls for a definition of the phenomenon of corruption that would be valid in all EU member states, as well as for the creation of basic norms for applicable sanctions. At the same time, the resolution calls for clear rules concerning conflict of interest and a higher transparency regarding financial transactions. The resolution points to the fact that corruption has caused losses of 120 billion euros, a sum similar to the Union’s annual budget.
A fresh school year has started in Romania, a country currently boasting about 3.2 million preschoolers, pupils and high-school students. The new education law, which came into effect on January the 1st and becomes applicable at the beginning of this new school year, has brought a number of changes, including a different structure to the school year structure and the introduction of evaluation tests after the first two weeks of classes. Other changes refer to the extension of secondary school by one year for those who are now fifth-graders and the introduction of a series of cultural, technical-scientific, sports, volunteering and social responsibility activities ahead of the spring holiday as part of a project entitled “A Different School”. The new regulations are aimed at decentralising the entire system. Headmasters will now be in charge of managing the salaries of substitute teachers, who are paid by the hour, as well as the competitions for substitutes who want to become permanent teachers. These contests will be staged in every individual school. In order to avoid what happened last year, when 30 million cases of truancy were reported in the first semester of school, the Education Ministry has introduced access cards to schools for all pupils. According to the authorities, the latest version of the education law, which has seen numerous changes over the last 20 years, is meant to reinvigorate the education system in Romania.
Results obtained by the Romanian football sides in top European competitions
Three Romanian football teams, Steaua Bucharest, Rapid Bucharest and FC Vaslui this week played their first games in the Europa League, whose final is scheduled to take place on Bucharest’s newly-built National Arena. Steaua ended in a goalless draw their home match against German side Schalke 04. FC Vaslui secured a two-all draw in their away game against Lazio Rome, while Rapid clinched a one-nil win against Hapoel from Tel Aviv. In the Champions League, Otelul Galati from Romania was defeated on Wednesday two-one by the Swiss side FC Basel.
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