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| THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR 2009 IN ROMANIA |
| (2010-01-02) |
| Last updated: 2010-01-06 18:11 EET |
In 2009, Romanians went to the polls to elect their first MEPs, to vote in a referendum on the reformation of Parliament and also to elect their president for the following 5 years. The November the 22nd election had a turnout of 78%. Most of those who went to the polls voted in favour of reducing the number of MPs as well as for a single-chamber Parliament. Enjoying support from the Liberal-Democratic Party, at the end of a tough election campaign, president Traian Basescu got a second term in office. In his investiture address, the president pleaded for a real political reform of the state, for reconciliation, dialogue and for common efforts on the part of both the citizens and the political class for the modernization of Romania.
In the past months of 2009, Romania saw a deep political crisis, the caretaker government led by Emil Boc - the first ever to be sacked through a no-confidence motion in the past 20 years of Romanian democracy - with restricted prerogatives. Though in early 2009 the Liberal-Democrats merged into a surprising alliance with the social-democrats, the autumn saw these political forces opposing each other. Eventually, the Liberal-Democrats stood as the single ruling party, and then, following the presidential election, forged another government alliance with the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the group of independents. They drew up a ruling programme based on a 16% flat tax, a VAT of 19%, an estimated 1.3% economic growth and a budget deficit of 5.9 % of the GDP.
The turmoil on the Romanian political stage prompted the IMF and other international financial bodies to postpone the disbursement of further installments from the almost 20 billion Euro loan agreed upon with Romania. Once the political stage turned stable again, IMF and European Commission delegations showed up in Bucharest and chances are that Romania will get another two installments in February. But in order to comply with the agreement, the Romanian government will have to resort to unpopular measures, such as the shedding of 100 thousand state jobs.
Romanian Dacian Ciolos, minister of agriculture and rural development in 2007-2008 was nominated European commissioner for agriculture in the new European Parliament. All the candidates proposed by the European Commission president Jose Manuel Barosso to become commissioners will be audited by the legislative committees in Strasbourg in January 2010.
In December Romania commemorated 20 years since the anti-Communist revolution which led to the fall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s regime. Starting in Timisoara, western Romania, a city which proclaimed itself the first ‘communism-free’ city in mid-December, the revolution reached its climax in Bucharest on December the 22nd, when under the protesters’ pressure, dictator Ceausescu and his wife Elena fled in a helicopter. The two were eventually apprehended and executed after a brief trial. Over 1000 people died and 35 hundred others were wounded in the events of December 1989.
In February at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Romania won the trial against Ukraine on the delineation of the Black Sea continental shelf. According to estimates, the region Romania gains, standing at 80% of the disputed continental shelf, has roughly 70 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 12 million tons of oil. After the failure of numerous rounds of negotiations between the Romanian diplomats and their counterparts from the former Soviet Union and Ukraine, which lasted between 1967 until the early 2000, the Court intervened and eventually ruled in favour of Romania.
After the collapse of the communist regime in the Republic of Moldova, the former Soviet state with a majority Romanian-speaking population, the summer election led to the formation of a democratic government whose main objective is to ensure the country’s real passing from communism to capitalism. The Speaker of the Moldovan Parliament, Mihai Ghimpu, also validated as the country’s caretaker president, fulfilled one of the first election pledges of the former pro-Western opposition, canceling the compulsory travel visas for the Romanian citizens. The measure had been introduced by the former pro-Russian government in retaliation for the alleged involvement of Bucharest in the mass protests that followed April’s election, which the oppositions claimed it was rigged.
In July, Romania completed its first military mission outside the country in the past 60 years. In 2003 the Romanian troops joined the international coalition which toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. At first Romania dispatched to Iraq an 850 strong contingent whose mission mainly consisted of activities meant to normalize the situation in Iraq, as well as relief operations. The contingent was then gradually downsized to 368. All in all nearly 7000 Romanian troops participated by rotation in operations in Iraq. Along the six years of participation, two Romanian soldiers were killed in the line of duty in Iraq and six were wounded.
Infections with the H1N1 virus started being reported in Romania in the second half of the year. Around 55 hundred people have become ill while several scores suffering from serious diseases died of complications. A vaccination campaign commenced in November when the Cantacuzino Institute in Bucharest provided the vaccine. According to experts, the Romanian vaccine, which at present is used only for people above the age of 16, also ensures protection against the mutations the H1N1 virus has undergone in other countries.
Bucharest and other localities in Romania hosted in autumn the 19th edition of the George Enescu International Music Festival, an event held in memory of the great Romanian composer. For a month, over 100 symphonic and chamber music concerts and recitals were given by famous singers, choirs and orchestras from Romania and abroad. The festival, considered one of the most important and prestigious in the world, hosted numerous opera and ballet shows as well as a fine art exhibition. The event also included a composition & performance contest on three sections, violin, piano and composition.
In 2009 German writer of Romanian descent Herta Muller was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. The writer managed to impress the Swedish Academy commission with her manner of describing the phenomenon of alienation. When she was living in Romania, the non-conformist Herta Muller had to endure persecution from the communist political police, the dreadful Securitate. She emigrated in Germany 22 years ago where she achieved notoriety in literature. In her novels Herta Muller speaks about the pressure she was subjected to in the communist period.
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