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| THE WEEK IN REVIEW (13-19/09/2010) |
| (2010-09-17) |
| Last updated: 2010-09-20 17:36 EET |
Tensions between Brussels and Paris regarding the Roma people France repatriated to Romania and Bulgaria dominated the proceedings at the European Council held on Thursday in Brussels, although the issues originally on the agenda were meant to include those related to EU economic and foreign policy. Attending the meeting, President Traian Basescu, spoke on behalf of Romania suggesting the drafting of a strategy for the integration of nomadic gypsies, which should focus on two dimensions:
“Let’s try to give them two things: the possibility to earn money through work and the possibility to educate their children. And I would like to add something: they should have the motivation to work. At the same time, the Roma people, like all EU citizens, should observe the laws of the state on whose territory they live.”
President Nicolas Sarkozy faced criticism inside the EU and specifically from the European Justice Commissioner, Viviane Reding, who spoke of taking France to court for having violated the European right to free movement. However, Sarkozy said Paris would continue to dismantle all illegal camps irrespective of their ethnic origin. On the other hand, the European Council accepted Romania’s proposal to harmonize EU foreign policy. Bucharest suggested that high level meetings focusing on strategic partnerships or energy issues should be preceded by the drafting of a mandate, approved by the European Council, allowing the EU to have a coherent foreign policy.
Romania’s Parliament passed, by a narrow margin of only two votes, a new pension law. The draft law was passed by the MPs of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the independents, while the opposition – the Liberals and Social Democrats - left the chamber in protest against the rejection of the amendment regarding the increase of the base-pension to 45% of the gross average salary. The MPs have established, among other things, that the value of the base-pension should be about 175 euros, and that by 2030 the retirement age for both men and women should be 65. The MPs also decided to integrate the military, the police and those paid via intellectual property rights into the unitary pension system. PM Emil Boc pointed out that by adopting this law they wanted to ensure that pension would be paid in the medium and long term. The opposition parties announced they would contest, separately, the new law at the Constitutional Court, and trade unions will call on the Romanian President not to promulgate the law.
In Baku, the presidents of Romania, Azerbaijan, Georgia and the PM of Hungary signed a joint declaration to politically support the AGRI project, which concerns the transportation of natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe. The Romanian President believes that the project is the most competitive of the rival projects aimed at conveying Caspian gas to Europe. According to President Basescu AGRI includes three stages of development:
“In an initial stage, 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year will pass through the terminal in Constanta, another 10 billion will be conveyed in the second stage and another 10 billion in the third stage. It is a flexible project whose costs will be regulated depending on the needs of the EU market and on the supply sources. What is for sure is that the first stage can be implemented with gas coming from Azerbaidjan”.
Over three million pupils and kindergarten students started school on September 13, accompanied by much disgruntled noises from their teachers. Still, the Ministry of Education said the school year started on the right foot, noting that over 90% of students study in schools that have been issued the proper licenses and health certificates, and that downsizing, especially of substitute teachers, has left behind a body of competent teaching staff. However, for trade unions in education, the year started badly, with salary cuts and redundancies. Starting on September 1st 1,600 teaching units were dismantled or consolidated, 15,000 positions were cut from a total of 370,000, and the ones that remain will have to make do on less money, after state employees had their wages reduced by 25% starting July 1. Trade unions announced they will soon hold protests in the country and in Brussels, to draw attention to what they see as the continuing degradation of the Romanian education system.
The Bucharest Court of Appeal on Thursday decided that Sorin Ovidiu Vantu, a famous businessman and owner of a large media network including TV and press, is to be released while investigations continue. He was being held under a 29-day arrest warrant, accused of aiding and abetting a known criminal. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, Vantu is alleged to have sent money to a former associate, Nicolae Popa, who fled Romania in 2000. In 2006, Popa was sentenced to 15 years in prison related to the scandal of a pyramid scheme he was involved in. The Romanian state had to pay damages worth over 100 million Euro to hundreds of thousands of people who were defrauded as part of that scheme. Popa was arrested in 2009 in Indonesia, and is undergoing extradition proceedings.
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