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| A Roundup of the Major Domestic Events of 2010 01/01/2011 |
| (2010-12-31) |
| Last updated: 2011-01-03 14:27 EET |
2010 was a year marked by government-led austerity measures in a concerted attempt to build an upward momentum for the Romanian economy. The year was equally marked by numerous grievances that triggered street protests, as well as several no-confidence votes submitted against Emil Boc’s Cabinet. The financial assistance agreement with various international financial institutions, suspended due to the 2009 political slump in Romania, was resumed in 2010. Romania received all installments agreed upon with the IMF, the World Bank and the European Commission, as part of a total bailout loan standing at nearly 20 billion euro. However, in order for the set goals to be met, the government was forced to operate a harsh 25% cutback of the incomes of public sector employees, a 15% slash of social benefits as well as numerous layoffs in the public sector. The 2011 budget was set up so as to observe the 4.4% of the budget deficit parameters imposed by the IMF. Alongside the unified public salary frame law and the pension reform, the measure was among the fundamental requirements for the disbursement of a fresh 900 million euro installment from the IMF loan as of January 2011. Along with the recalculation of pensions, the government also agreed to extend the retirement age from 59 to 63 for women and from 63 to 65 for men.
The Parisian authorities’ decision to repatriate Bulgarian- and Romanian-born Roma living in illegal camps on the outskirts of large cities in France generated a heated debate in the European Parliament. France was slammed for violating the right to free movement and the European Commission was just one step from starting infringement proceedings against the French state. Brussels gave France two weeks to provide draft measures and address the Roma issue. On October the 15th, EU commissioner Viviane Reding, the fiercest opponent of the French authorities’ measures, said that Paris offered high-level political guarantees that Roma expulsions were not discriminating. Paris further offered a financial compensation of 300 euros per adult and 100 euros per child to voluntarily return to their homelands. However, that does not guarantee that those who did decide to leave French territory wouldn’t come back after six months, as the law allows them to. At the European Council held in September, president Traian Basescu said the Roma must enjoy all the rights they are entitled to as EU citizens, but that they should nonetheless abide by the laws of the state where they are living. In light of these incidents, the European Commission reiterated the idea that the social and economic integration of the Roma represents a common challenge and a common responsibility for all EU member states. The Commission announced it would present an EU framework for national Roma integration strategies as of April next year.
In early November, the EU launched the technical decision-making framework concerning Romania and Bulgaria’s accession to the Schengen zone, currently comprising 25 European countries. Launched in July 2009, evaluations on Romania carried out by European Commission experts have been positive, proving that Bucharest has properly done its homework. France and Germany however want the process of Romania and Bulgaria’s accession to be delayed. Paris and Berlin fear that drawbacks in the judicial system can bear on border management and Schengen information networks with severe consequences for the EU domestic security. In Bucharest, president Basescu has described the French-German move as discriminatory, and added that introduction of other criteria than the technical ones in evaluating a member state’s ability to join the free movement space would create a dangerous precedent.
Regarded at first with scepticism, the designation of a Romanian in the European executive board proposed by Portuguese leader Jose Manuel Barroso has eventually materialised in the nomination of Dacian Ciolos in the position of European commissioner for agriculture. Among Ciolos’s top priorities is the reform of the common agricultural policy after 2013. The EU official believes the rural development programme will very much depend on the way in which every member state is shaping up its national programme in keeping with community regulations. Fund-accessing mechanisms, including the farmers’ private co-funding, are of equal importance.
The year 2010 brought Bucharest and Chisinau one step closer to one another. In January, in the first foreign visit of his new tem in office, President Traian Basescu found interlocutors in the Republic of Moldova who wanted the relation with Romania to go back to normal. We recall that Moldova is a former Soviet Republic, with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population. The months that followed proved that the new pro-European power in Chisinau also takes seriously the European integration efforts that Bucharest has backed for quite some time. Also in the Republic of Moldova, the Romanian president announced the founding in Bucharest of an agency aimed at facilitating the Romanian citizenship granting procedure for Moldovans. The 100-million euro non-reimbursable loan that Bucharest offered to Chisinau, as well as Moldova’s decision to lift visa requirements for Romanian citizens, then the signing of the small-scale cross-border trade agreement, or disbanding the barbed wire fence inherited from the Soviet occupants, are as many examples of the regained normality. And so is the appointment of a new Romanian ambassador to Chisinau, in the position that had been vacant since April 2009, when his predecessor was declared a persona non-grata. The move was entailed by still unproved accusations that he might have fuelled the protest rallies staged by students who accused the communist power of rigging the legislative elections.
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