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| THE WEEK IN REVIEW (25.06-1.07.2007) |
| (2007-06-29) |
| Last updated: 2007-07-06 12:01 EET |
On Wednesday, the European Commission released its long awaited the report that looks into the progress made by Romania and Bulgaria after the January 1st EU accession. The document notes the progress in the reform of the judiciary and the fight against corruption, especially petty corruption. However, action against high-level corruption, the report states, is still insufficient. For this reason, the European Commission recommends that efforts for its eradication continue to be stepped up. As a result, although they decided not to activate a safeguard clause, Brussels officials will continue to put political pressure both on Romania and Bulgaria. Romanian justice minister Tudor Chiuariu said he would look into the recommendations made by the European Commission and, based on them, would come up with a concrete plan of action.
“The monitoring had been scheduled to start back on January 1st 2007 and to span 3 years. If we fulfil our obligations, the process can of course be drawn to a close, but this isn’t going to happen right now. We will check the Commission’s exact recommendations, and look at the standpoints of the relevant Romanian authorities. I will come up with a concrete plan of action, which will make sure that unsatisfactory chapters don’t appear in the next report.”
Also on Wednesday, this time in Strasbourg, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly adopted the 2nd report by Swiss Dick Marty, on the alleged existence of secret CIA-run prisons in Europe, where suspected terrorists were allegedly detained and tortured. Marty accused Romania and Poland of having willingly hosted such detention centres between 2003 and 2005. He also said that his information came from confidential sources. Liberal senator Norica Nicolai, head of the Romanian Parliamentary Commission that looked into the potential existence of CIA prisons in Romania, compared Marty’s report to a second-hand article by an uneducated journalist invoking ‘sources’ as a basis for his ungrounded accusations. Moreover, the Romanian delegation to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly took a drastic decision. Liberal Adrian Miutescu told us more:
“The Romanian parliamentary delegation says it will no longer participate in activities conducted by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly before the rapporteur himself comes to Romania to verify his so-called information and secret evidence incriminating Romania for having hosted secret detention centres.”
Before going on their parliamentary holiday, the deputies in Bucharest on Thursday passed a bill drawn up by the Social Democratic Party, in opposition. The bill is to significantly increase state pensions in 2008. For years, politicians have shown too little concern about the underprivileged 6 million pensioners, who got used to surviving on the brink of poverty. The few pension increases seen so far have been regarded as a mere smoke screen. The intention of the authorities in Bucharest is to increase pensions by almost 100% in the next two years. However, these plans have not been very well received by the Fitch Ratings Agency. In its opinion, this measure will only increase the possibility of economic overheating and the rapid depreciation of the national currency, the leu.
Romania has seen some extreme weather this last week. Heat-waves, storms and torrential rain have come one after another, managing to cause problems even among the healthiest of people. The drought has created enormous problems for farmers. After declaring a state of natural disaster in agriculture in 34 counties in Romania, the Government has decided on new measures to combat the effects of the protracted drought. In the first budget adjustment of 2007, the Government has allocated the biggest slice of funding to agriculture. The heath-care system has also been earmarked substantial sums, mostly meant to restore a number of hospitals. The agriculture and health ministers, Decebal Traian Remes and Eugen Nicolaescu respectively had to face, however, strong criticism in Parliament, where the Democratic Party and Social Democratic Party both filed two motions, unhappy with the situation in agriculture and the health-care system. Just one of the 2 motions was passed, the one on agriculture filed by the Social Democrats. As a result, the provisions of the motion become mandatory for the Agriculture Ministry, which is thus forced to pay disaster damages to all farmers, to subsidise the price of Diesel oil and grant a subsidy for irrigation.
We end with news from the Supreme Defence Council meeting: the Romanian army troops made available for international missions under UN, NATO and EU command and located in the country, will increase in 2008 by 346 military as compared to 2007. The Romanian troops will be ready to carry out collective defence missions, humanitarian assistance and coalition type missions.
(Roxana Vasile)
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