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RADOR: News from Romania, 98-09-17
September 17, 1998
CONTENTS
[01] Senate Proceedings;
[02] House of Deputies Proceedings;
[03] PDSR Position on Amendments to Education Law;
[04] PUNR in Support of Decision Made by House of Deputies' Education
Commission;
[05] Prime Minister Radu Vasile Met a Delegation of Romanian Journalists,
Publishers and Writers;
[06] Possible Consequences of the Moody's Rating to Romania;
[07] NAVROM Estate under Sequestration;
[08] A Programme Aimed at Modernising Routes in Moldavia Was Launched in
Iassy.
[01] Senate proceedings
At its meeting on Wednesday, the legal commission in the Romanian Senate
has examined the opportunity of a new draft law on fighting corruption.
Justice Minister Valeriu Stoica has attended the meeting. The project is an
attempt to present a new concept extending the corruption charges from the
public to the private sector, minister Stoica said at the end of the
meeting. He has criticised the Magistrates' Supreme Council for failing to
take its obligations seriously. RADOR
While attending a meeting of the human rights commission in the Senate,
Justice Minister Valeriu Stoica said that Romanian judges were doing only
what they wanted to do, in defiance of any good sense. It is inconceivable
that a man who steals a hen may be sentenced to prison while people
stealing millions are free in defiance of the public opinion, Mr Stoica
said. RADOR
[02] House of Deputies proceedings
At their joint session on Wednesday, the legal commission and the
commission for defence, public order and national security affairs in the
House of Deputies have discussed the senator Ticu Dumitrescu's legal
initiative allowing access to former Securitate files. While attending the
meeting, senator Dumitrescu said he had evidence confirming that the
Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), Romania's Foreign Intelligence Service
(SIE) and the Military Intelligence Directorate were not the only ones to
preserve the former Securitate archives. Such archives may be found as well
in other special units. He said he had some documents concerning the state
of the archives, accurtae figures concerning the informers and the
political parties they belong. Participants in the meeting also included
representatives of the Group for Social Dialogue (GDS), Pro-Democratia
Association and the Human Rights Institute. RADOR
[03] PDSR position on amendments to Education Law
At a press conference on Wednesday, the MP group representing the
opposition Party Of Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR) concentrated, among
other things, on the Ordinance 36 amending the Education Law. The Deputy
Speaker of the House of Deputies, Mr Adrian Nastase, has condemned Speaker
Ion Diaconescu's interfering in the debates of a commission. Mr Nastase
said the attempt to impose a procedure other than the rules already
established was inconceicable, undemocratic and unconstitutional. He
rejected the text of the project as drawn up by the governing coalition
because, as he put it, the project opened the way to an educational
segregation on ethnic criteria. On the other hand, the PDSR MP group
believes that the text of the law already proposed and passed by the
commission was not denying access to mother tongue teaching higher
education for Romania's national minorities. RADOR
[04] PUNR in support of decision made by House of Deputies' education
commission
The Romanians' National Unity Party (PUNR) regrets that the governing
coalition concentrates on the UDMR request of a Hungarian language teaching
university while neglecting the serious problems the Romanian society was
facing. PUNR president Valeriu Tabara told a press conference on Wednesday
that it was only the Romanian Parliament, and not the party leaders in the
governing coalition, who had the consitutional right to make a decision
over the issue. The PUNR leader said his party would never accept
autonomous structures on ethnic criteria in Romania's higher education
system nor it would accept its self-ruling by any national minority. Mr
Tabara said that multicultural technical, artistic and medical studies were
out of question as Romanian was the official language of the Romanian
state. RADOR
[05] Prime Minister Radu Vasile met a delegation of Romanian journalists,
publishers and writers
While at Victoria Palace on Wenesday, Romanian Prime Minister Radu Vasile
hold talks with journalists, publishers and writers over recent
developments in Romania's culture and publishing of books and newspapaers.
The RRA says the delegation has presented the prime minister with an eight-
point list pointed out that the future of the newspapers, magazines and
books - the future of Romania's culture actually - might depend on a
comprehensive or partial answer to their demands. Referring to the 11% cut
in the VAT for book and newspaper publishing as stipulated in the adjusted
Budget, the two sides agreed that, as far as the newspapers were concerned,
the figure may remain unchanged. The VAT on book publishing was however
suspended. The decision will come into force by October 1. RADOR
[06] Possible consequences of the Moody's rating to Romania
The international rating agency, Moody's has raised Romania's risk rating
by 2 points. An economic analyst says it is not too ofen when a rating
agency decides to introduce such raise at once. He admitted however that
the Asian financial crisis might have led to such a decision. "As far as
Romania is concerned, its grwing risk rating may lead to higher interests
for foreign loans, the virtual investors may show more restraint and the
Stock Exchange may suffer following the foreign capital withdrawal", the
analyst predicted. He pointed out that Romania was expected to pay back
larger parts of its foregn debt in the next year and some 4 billion dollars
were necessary to keep it up. "For the time being, there is no sign that
the IMF is too much confident in the Romanian Government's economic policy
and negotiations over a new agreement did not even start", the expert
concluded. RADOR
[07] NAVROM estate under sequestration
Following a recent court ruling, BANCOREX has put the NAVROM estate (ships,
buildings etc.) under sequestration. The company owes more than 200 million
dollars to the bank. Under the circomstances, no ship can be sold to cover
parts of the debt, and more, some 30 NAVROM ships are seised for other
debts the company accumulated in the past. RADOR
[08] A programme aimed at modernising routes in Moldavia was lanched in
Iassy
While attending the opening session of the 10-th Congress on national
routes and bridges in the Moldavian city of Iassy on Wednesday, Romanian
Transport Minister Traian Basescu has launched a programme designed to
modernise the routes in Moldavia, the so-called "Moldavia Programme"
expectted to end in the year 2001. The programme will be achieved with the
financial support of the World Bank, the European Community through its EU-
Phare programme and the European Investment bank SEIB) The estimated 400
million dollar programme will include mainly the modernisation of some 450
km of routes starting from Urziceni-Ramnicu Sarat-Focsani-Bacau-Roman and
connecting the route of Roman-Targu Frumos-Iassy to the customs checkpoint
of Saculeni. The transport minister said the "Moldavia Programme" actually
started a month and half ago on the route linking Urziceni and Buzau. He
added that the programme was a priority for both his ministry and Romania's
Cabinet. RADOR
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