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| THE WEEK IN REVIEW 04-10/10/2010 |
| (2010-10-08) |
| Last updated: 2010-10-11 13:09 EET |
President Traian Basescu has sent the new pension law back to Parliament, in spite of the fact that the Constitutional Court had ruled it constitutional. The head of state said that, from the point of view of legality, he has nothing to comment about the law, passed by both chambers of Parliament. However, he said that the law had one shortcoming – the fact that it sets the retirement age at 65 for both men and women. According to the president, having the same retirement age ignores domestic social and economic realities, which put women in a less advantageous position.
Traian Basescu proposed that the retirement age for women be set at 63 years of age. Perfectly in line with the Constitution, the move made by the head of state was interpreted by the opposition, which filed a complaint with Constitutional Court, as a way for the president to avoid impeachment. The Social Democrats and the Liberals had announced that if Traian Basescu endorsed the law, suspected of having been passed in a fraudulent parliamentary vote, they would initiate impeachment procedures. The opposition says that the minimum quorum of parliamentarians was not met in the Chamber of Deputies when the law was voted, something which allegedly can be seen on video recordings, but this was ignored by the speaker of the Chamber, Roberta Anastase, a Liberal Democrat.
Before the announcement made by Basescu, the Constitutional Court decision generated a wave of anger among pensioners and the opposition, but the parties in power said that the new law brings justice to the public pension system because it is in line with the principle of proportionality of contribution, removing huge discrepancies. The law also removes special treatment for the pensions of police personnel, the military and members of parliament, and also freezes pensions in 2011. Unions had also called on the president to not endorse the law, angry at the way in which pensions are calculated and the fact that it removes certain bonuses for people whose jobs force them to work under harsh conditions. The reform of the pension system is one of the pledges made by Romania as part of the 20 billion Euro loan contracted with the EU, the World Bank, but mainly the IMF.
Over 6000 teachers from all across the country, called in by three pre-university education union federations, came to Bucharest on October 5, for World Education Day. They held protests in front of the main government building, the presidential compound, and the Ministry of Education. Teachers are angry at the cut in salaries, the reduction of the number of positions available, the unified pension law in the state sector, the plan of the government to continue to shut down schools in rural areas, and the chronic under-funding of the education system: Here is the president of the Spiru Haret Union Federation, Gheorghe Izvoranu:
“Salaries have been cut by 25%, but real incomes have dropped by 40 to 50%. No other European country has measures as harsh as these in education. Collective labor agreements have been cancelled, schools have been closed, there are many, many countries out there that have a much smaller number of students per teacher”.
Romania, alongside Hungary, Serbia, and Bulgaria are continuously monitoring the quality of waters in the Danube, which have begun to be contaminated by toxic residue after last week’s industrial accident in Hungary. The chemical spill from the storage basin in Ajka, 160 km from Budapest, resulted in hundreds of thousands of tons of sludge full of alkali and heavy metals spreading over hundreds of square km. After the accident, Hungary activated the European civil protection mechanism, asking for technical assistance in removing the pollutant. European humanitarian aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva, said that Brussels is ready for action.
Experts say that the measures taken in the last few days along the course of rivers, such as dumping large quantities of decontaminants, have reduced the effects of the pollution, but ecology experts say that the long term effects of this catastrophe are hard to evaluate. Romanian experts believe that because the accident took place 700 km away from the point where the Danube touches Romanian territory, and the fact that the river is unusually high at this time of the year, will lessen the effects of the pollution in Romania.
Romania and the Republic of Moldova are continuing to expand their consular networks, opening at the end of the week a general Moldovan consulate in Iasi, in north western Romania. According to a Romanian Foreign Ministry press release, “the wish of the authorities in the Republic of Moldova to enhance their presence in Romania is a natural consequence of the democratic changes that have occurred in the neighboring state after the 2009 election victory of the Alliance for European Integration. This event is one again proof of the positive atmosphere in the relations between the two European states, one a member of the European Union, the other on an extremely ambitious European route, with very favorable perspectives for reaching the aim of integration”.
In July, Romania opened two general consulates in the Republic of Moldova, in Balti and Cahul.
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