Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta on Monday in a meeting with various parliamentary groups presented the draft law regarding the restitution of properties confiscated under the communist regime, for which the Government will seek a vote of confidence in Parliament on Wednesday. MPs may file amendments which will be submitted to Government for debate in a special meeting on Tuesday. Victor Ponta said the state had so far paid compensations worth 5 billion euros, and the number of files still pending stands at 200,000, as compared to only 27,000 that have been solved so far. Only 25% of people who’ve reclaimed their properties so far are Romanian, while the remaning 75% are foreign nationals, which has resulted in an substantial capital export.

The “Car Scrappage Scheme”, meant to renew Romania’s car fleet comes again into the focus of attention, being publicly debated, as of Monday. According to the Environment Minister Rovana Plumb, the value of a coupon obtained in exchange for a car older than 10 years will increase from approximately 860 Euros to some 1,500 Euros. The issuance and distribution of coupons will start on May the 15th. As of this year, only one coupon can be used in order to buy a new car. The program meant to encourage the renewal of the national car fleet was initiated in 2004. The most spectacular results were registered in 2010, when approximately 117,000 old cars were scrapped under the scheme.

As of Monday Bucharest is hosting the FINABEL Coordination Committee meeting, attended by the chiefs of staff of the land forces of 17 EU member states, representatives of European military organisations and of NATO. Romania has been a member of the FINABEL Coordination Committee since 2008, and it held the presidency of this organisation between April 2012 and April 2013. Set up in 1953, the FINABEL Coordination Committee made the cooperation in developing joint military equipping programs its first objective. Later on, the Committee expanded its sphere of interest towards harmonising doctrines and achieving interoperability between the Land Forces of the European FINABEL member states. The FINABEL Coordination Committee is currently made up of the chiefs of staff of the Land Forces from France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Poland, Slovakia, Finland, Romania, Cyprus, Malta and the Czech Republic.