On Wednesday, The Sun published an investigation saying that Romanians coming to the UK starting 2014, when the "doors will open" will infect the British with a deadly TB superbug. Jonathan Still, the TB expert quoted by the tabloid, explained in an interview for HotNews.ro that everything he said was taken out of context and that it is very "frustrating" and "not OK" that they turned a public health problem into an anti-Romanians thing, given that Romanians aren't the ones infecting everybody with TB.

• An American citizen, Stillo is a doctoral candidate in medical Anthropology at City University of New York Graduate Center (not a British researcher) and has been researching TB in Romania for the past 7 years. He says Romania is his second home.  

The Bucharest Tribunal decided on Monday that former Romanian PM Adrian Nastase, who had been sentenced to two years in a corruption case, may leave on parole. The decision was taken by two judge votes against one. The former prime minister will be freed from Jilava penitentiary.

​Romania's national veterinary and foot control authority ANSVSA initiated a quick response alert on Wednesday after it found horse meat labelled as beef at a company in Ilfov county near Bucharest, a press release says. ANSVSA says the meat was aimed at local market distribution and no connection could be made with the EU-level horse meat situation. The head of ANSVSA also announced he informed the police about what he called a form of intimidation, by which the horse meat was linked to an abattoir owned by his father.

Romanian businessman and politician Gigi Becali received on Monday a 3-year sentence with conditional suspension of execution in a case in which he was charged with forcefully retaining several people involved in a car theft. Becali, best known as the man who controls Bucharest football club Steaua and as a former member of the European Parliament turned member of the Romanian Parliament - is not in Romania for the moment. He announced last weekend that he was in Dubai and would not return before the court sentence.

• Shortly after the reading of the sentence, Becali told Romanian news TV channel RTV by phone that he was resigning from the National Liberal Party and that "I have nothing to do in that country [Romania] anymore".

The conclusions of the official investigation of the Bulgarian Government into the 18 July 2012 Burgas bus bombing are clear: the terrorist organization Hezbollah was directly responsible. (...) Terrorism has no boundaries and the time has come for the European Union to recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and place it on its official list of terrorist entities.

Dan Voiculescu, the founding leader of Romania's Conservative Party, a small but highly influential party of the governing coalition, announced his resignation from the Senate on Monday. The announcement comes several days before a new term in a corruption case involving Dan Voiculescu was due at the High Court of Justice. His resignation means the case is returned from the High Court, which deals with cases involving dignitaries, to a lower court - the Bucharest Tribunal. It is the second time in less than a year when Voiculescu resigns as Senator and thus avoid High Court hearings.

Romanian PM Victor Ponta said in an interview with the Romanian-language version of HotNews.ro on Friday that his government was looking for the "right judicial and constitutional solution" to allow for higher income taxes for budget sector employees with incomes of more than 4,500 lei (1,000 euro). He said he believed that an income of 1,000 euro would provide for a "decent living in the public sector".

Romania's National Integrity Agency (ANI), a key body in preventing and fighting conflicts of interests, will receive more responsibilities in combating conflicts of interests related to EU funds, an initiative which would be discussed in government session next week, PM Victor Ponta said in an interview with the Romanian-language version of HotNews.ro on Friday.

Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta said in an interview with the Romanian-language version of HotNews.ro on Friday that he supported the exploration of shale gas in the country.

The newly designated government of Romania, formed of the Social Liberal Union (USL) alliance and led by Victor Ponta, eyes an average annual economic growth of 3% for 2013-2016 and maintaining an ESA-system budget deficit of under 3% until 2016, according to the USL governing program, published by the government on Thursday. On fiscal policies, the government says it plans to provide transparency for public funds, to simplify the tax system, to return to a 19% VAT and introduce progressive taxation.

Romania's designated prime minister Victor Ponta presented on Wednesday the structure and members of the future Government. It will include many more ministerial seats than before, many of which split from existing governing bodies. Ponta's team was announced after days of negotiations between the governing Social Liberal Union (USL), formed of Ponta's Social Democrats and the National Liberal Party, who won the December 9 parliamentary elections by a large majority.

Romanian President Traian Basescu signed on Monday the decree designating Victor Ponta, leader of the Social Democrats (PSD) and co-head of the Social Liberal Union (USL) as prime minister of Romania. The move comes as the USL, the alliance of PSD and the Liberals (PNL), obtained a large majority of votes in the December 9 parliamentary elections.

The official results of the December 9 parliamentary elections in Romania were published in the Official Gazette on Friday. President Traian basescu said in Brussels today that he would call the Parliament immediately after the publication of results and that he would consider whether to do so on December 19. Meanwhile, PM Victor Ponta, whose governing alliance won a majority of votes in the elections, said in an interview he hoped the new government would be in place by Christmas.

US Ambassador Mark H Gitenstein has completed his diplomatic assignment in Romania and has returned to the US, the Embassy announced in a press release on Friday. Deputy Chief of Mission Duane Butcher has become charge d'affaires ad interim as of December 14.

The main alliance of Romanian opposition parties, the Right Romania Alliance (ARD), was dismantled a day after parliamentary elections in which it suffered an overwhelming defeat against the governing Social Liberal Union (USL). While partial results show USL with about 60% of the total number of votes, USL says its own parallel counting shows it won with about 66% of MP seats. Meanwhile, The elections were harsh for the ARD leaders who have yet to learn if they'll get a seat in the Parliament - which will have more MPs than available room on the parliamentary floor.

Negotiations between the Romanian PM Victor Ponta's Social Democratic Party (PSD), a member of the Social Liberal Union (USL) along the National Liberal Party (PNL), and the Hungarian Democrats (UDMR) for a possible collaboration in the Parliament and the Government had started before the December 9 general elections and are aimed mainly at strengthening the PSD position before PNL within the USL alliance, according to HotNews.ro sources. PM Ponta announced on Sunday night that he talked with UDMR over such a possibility. According to sources, the talks took place between Ponta and UDMR leader Kelemen Hunor, who may receive the seat of Culture minister.

The governing Social Liberal Union received 58.61% of votes in the Sunday elections for House of Deputies and 60.08% for Senate, according to partial results announced by the Central Electoral Office at 2.00 p.m. on Monday, with 95.83% of the votes counted. USL is followed by the Right Romania Alliance with 16.58% (House)/16.79% (Senate). the populist Dan Diaconescu Popular Party and the Hungarian Democrats (UDMR).

Leaders of Romania's governing Social Liberal Union (USL) including Social Democratic PM Victor Ponta Liberal Senate speaker Crin Antonescu claimed victory in the parliamentary elections today, with exit polls showing USL getting over 50% of the votes. They said it was a "victory against the [President Traian] Basescu's regime" and insisted that NATO and EU will remain the "cardinal directions" of Romanian foreign policy. Meanwhile, opposition ARD alliance said they trusted it will reach its 20% target - while reports claim some of ARD leaders might not even enter Parliament.

Romania's governing Social Liberal Union (USL), formed of Social Democrats and Liberals, scored over 50% of votes in parliamentary elections on Sunday, according to exit polls presented by TV channels at 9 p.m. today. According to exit polls, USL scored between 54 and 58%; the opposition ARD alliance - between 19 and 21%; the populist Dan Diaconescu Popular Party (PPDD) - between 10 and 14%; the Hungarian Democrats (UDMR) - about 5%.

• The exit poll results are "affected" by a large number of voters who notably refused to tell poll operators whom they voted with, as one polling institute director has said.

updating

20.56% of Romanian voters showed up to cast their ballots in the parliamentary elections by 2.00 p.m. on Sunday, according to data announced by the Central Electoral Office. As bad weather affects most of the country, turnout is slightly above the 2.00 p.m. level of the 2008 parliamentary elections (19.84%) and below the level of the referendum to dismiss president Basescu this summer (21.37%).
UPDATE 1 Turnout at 6 p.m., 3 hours before closing vote, stood at 36.54%
UPDATE 2 Turnout at closing polls (9 p.m.) stood at 41.72%

​Romania is facing yet another one of its all to frequent milestone moments in its recent history with the parliamentary elections taking place on December 9. It has to choose between returning to the path to a Western model or to push quickly on the path to the Hungarian, Turkmen or Uzbek model - considering US Secretary of State Clinton's recent statements. The options are simple: functional institutions, rule for everybody and improving politicians or almighty oligarchs replacing institutions hand in hand with corrupt politicians. Will Romanians look for political leaders accepted by the West or for nationalist braggarts? On the domestic front, Romania is no longer facing the eternal choice of "the least evil". The stake for 2012: limiting "the biggest evil".

Some 18.2 million Romanian voters are expected to cast their ballots in parliamentary elections on December 9. The poll is a key moment in a political storm pitching the governing alliance of Social Democrats and Liberals (USL) against President Traian Basescu over the past seven months, a storm which sparked rising Western criticism of Romania's compliance with the rule of law and European values and amplified the stakes for the economic, political and international future of the country.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday gave a terrible blow to the double-faced policy promoted by Romania's governing coalition of Social Democrats and Liberals (USL), who are wearing a pro-Western mask before foreign officials and journalists while launching furious attacks on institutions and ignoring any economic reform when at home.  Clinton held a tough speech in which she mentioned Romania along former USSR countries and Hungary as countries with democratic difficulties. The speech came a few days after European Commission officials had sent the least wanted message from Brussels, the Commission is unwilling to conclude a new precautionary accord along the IMF in 2013 because Romania has not fulfilled its promises in the current accord. The two pieces of news mean two things: Romania's access to funding will be more expensive, while investors are to avoid Romania.

The Romanian-language version of Google has not been accessible for many Romanian users for several hours on Wednesday following what a report called a DNS poisoning attack. Google has said its services in Romania were not attacked, but that for a short period of time some Google.ro and other web services users were redirected to another website. For a while in the morning, the users could see the Google.ro interface replaced with a message from an "Algerian hacker".

Romanian President Traian Basescu has demanded "imperatively" a significant rise in allocations for direct payments to Romanian farmers, during his talks with European Council president Herman Van Rompuy on Thursday, European sources told HotNews.ro. The talks come as EU leaders start marathon talks in an attempt to reach a compromise on the EU's 2014-2020 budget, with Germany and others saying they would not dismiss the possibility of failure.
UPDATE A new proposal pushed by Herman Van Rompuy is even more radical than the previous one, which called for an E80 billion cut. European sources told HotNews.ro that the head of the European Council has now proposed a EU budget cut of E200 billion - the amount demanded by Britain. The reduction would be applied to European Commission proposed budget of E1,047 billion.

The Romanian Presidency marked on Wednesday 10 years since Romania was invited to join NATO. The ceremony was a rare moment when incumbent President Traian Basescu and predecessors Ion Iliescu and Emil Constantinescu were seen together, in the company of ambassadors and other officials. US Ambassador to Romania Mark Gitenstein used the occasion to describe the US-Romania partnership as essential for NATO's European missile shield.

Romania's prime minister Victor Ponta said in a press conference on Thursday that European Council president Herman Van Rompuy's proposal to reduce the money allocated for Europe's common agricultural policy and cohesion funds in the EU 2014-2020 budget was unacceptable. He said Romania may go as far as to use its veto right in the case.

US Ambassador to Romania Mark Gitenstein has told HotNews.ro that any initiative to renew talks on changing law regulating the National Integrity Agency (ANI) - which focuses on the wealth and interests of Romanian officials would be a very bad idea and would not be well received by the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, by the EU or the US. He urged Romanian authorities to prove caution in this regard. His statements came a day after he said Romania was facing difficult elections that may divide the people and that worried him.

Russia's Ambassador to Bucharest Oleg Malginov will be "invited" to the Romanian Foreign Ministry "as soon as possible" for discussions on a traffic accident involving a Russian diplomat, which took place in Bucharest on Sunday, Foreign minister Titus Corlatean said on Tuesday, pointing out that the driver involved in the crash refused an alcohol text.

The Romanian Competition Council has launched an investigation on the local media market, eyeing media buying and planning agencies, the institution announced in a press release on Monday. The investigation is related to a possible deal among companies in this sector with the purpose of eliminating competitors in media agency pitches. The investigation is related to a newly formed Media Club, an entity announced recently by ten major media agencies in Romania.

Angela Merkel, Jose Barroso, Traian Basescu and other European leaders who attended the European Popular Party congress in Bucharest on Thursday spoke of the threat of populism in Europe and of the need of a deeper European integration. Meanwhile in the Romanian capital, the governing coalition of Social Democrats and Liberals (USL) organized a major event in the city's National Arena stadium to launch their candidates for the upcoming parliamentary elections. The event was marked by a series of nationalist and populist speeches.

While family businesses have a history of hundreds of years internationally and many of them long outlive their founders, a tendency among private companies in post-communist Romania shows that the death of their founders meant insolvency in many cases. Top local companies such as Aldis or Edy Spedition are such cases where businesses faced serious financial troubles following the death of their initiators. What makes the local market different for such a tendency to occur?

Romanian President Traian Basescu, who was suspended by the Parliament and faced a referendum to remove him from office earlier this summer, returned to Presidency on Tuesday after a Constitutional Court decision that the referendum was invalid was published in the Official Gazette on Monday evening.

Romania's Parliament took note on Monday of a Constitutional Court decision to invalidate the July 29 referendum to dismiss President Traian Basescu. The publication of the Court decision in the Official Gazette is the last necessary step prior to Basescu's return to presidency and it may happen as early as Monday evening. The Parliament session today was not without trouble, as it started two hours late because of a boycott by the governing coalition of Liberals and Social Democrats, who oppose Basescu.

Romania's interim President Crin Antonescu said on Tuesday he and his National Liberal Party would comply with a Constitutional Court earlier today allowing suspended President Traian Basescu return to office. But Antonescu said the Court decision was "unfair" for the 8.5 million people who voted in a referendum to dismiss Basescu and that he and his party would not recognize him politically, as Basescu "is an illegitimate president". Referring to a statement weeks ago that he would withdraw from politics should Basescu return to office, Antonescu said he would not do so considering the massive vote to dismiss Basescu.
UPDATE Crin Antonescu and other Liberal leaders said on Tuesday they would not exclude a new attempt to suspend President Basescu in the future.
UPDATE 2 PM Victor Ponta, a Social Democrat, also said on Tuesday the Court decision would be complied with, but called it "unfair" and "against democratic rules".

The nine judges of Romania's Constitutional Court decided on Tuesday that the July 29 referendum to dismiss suspended President Traian Basescu was invalid. Six members of the Court decided to invalidate the poll and three against it. The vote means President Traian Basescu, who has been suspended by the Parliament, returns to the Presidency. The judges convened today to decide whether the referendum was valid or not. The Court session came after weeks of political turmoil as the governing coalition led by Social Democratic PM Victor Ponta and interim President Crin Antonescu has been trying hard to find ways so that a Court decision force Basescu to leave. The struggle has drawn massive criticism and suspicions about rule of law in Romania.

Romanian PM Victor Ponta announced on Monday a series of proposals to change key members of his government, saying they were already accepted by interim President Crin Antonescu. He announced new ministers for the Interior and Administration Ministry, the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Justice Ministry. The move comes after Interior minister Ioan Rus and another minister announced their resignation on Monday morning.

Romania's Interior and Administration minister Ioan Rus announced his resignation on Monday accusing pressure from both suspended President Traian Basescu and interim President Crin Antonescu. His resignation comes amid continuing political turmoil as Romania still waits for a final result of the June 29 referendum to dismiss President Basescu because of disputes on the voter lists used in the poll.

Romania's Constitutional Court (CCR) decided on Thursday to postpone until September 12 a decision on the validation of the Sunday referendum to dismiss the president, in which not enough votes were cast to exceed a 50% turnout threshold needed for the ballot to take effect. The news was announced by a CCR judge, quoted by TV news channels. The Court decision to postpone such a decision does little to solve the political crisis affecting Romania for the past weeks. Romania's central bank governor was among the last to warn today that a calmer domestic political life would help alleviate pressures on the economy.
UPDATE CCR later issued a press release showing that the postponement of a decision was due to "contradicting data" regarding the number of people on electoral lists.

Voter turnout in the Sunday referendum, in which Romanians were asked if they agreed to dismiss President Traian Basescu, stood at 46,24%, according to final figures released by the Central Electoral Office on Wednesday morning. The percentage comes short of the threshold of 50% of listed voters needed for the referendum to be validated. Also on Wednesday, the Constitutional Court is due to convene for a decision whether to validate or invalidate de referendum, with the governing alliance which pushed for Basescu's impeachment now claiming that the participation threshold was exceeded, considering what they call the real number of Romanian voters.

Multinational electronic media group Naspers takes over 70% of major Romanian online retailer eMag, as announced in a notification to eMag partners, obtained by HotNews.ro. eMag, a 500-employee company which had a business figure of 145 mln euro in 2011 end expects 180 mln euro in business for 2012, confirmed the deal in a press release later on Monday.

Romania's governing coalition and suspended President Traian Basescu's team on Monday morning both claimed victory in the Sunday referendum in which the people were asked to decide whether Basescu should be dismissed or not. Their statements came despite a final verdict from the central electoral office on whether voter turnout was enough to validate the referendum, with preliminary figures showing that a necessary threshold of 50%+1 of listed voters has not been met.

86,9% of Romanian active voters voted in favor of dismissing President Traian Basescu and 13% against it in the Sunday referendum, but voter turnout stood at 44.01% at 9 p.m., two hours before closing polls, according to an Operations Research exit poll presented by news channel Realitatea TV at 11.00 p.m.. A separate exit poll by CCSB company for Antena 3 news channel showed 84% of active voters voted in favor of the impeachment and 16% against it, with a turnout of 44% by 9 p.m. 50% plus one of the total number of listed voters in Romania have to cast their votes by 11 p.m. for the referendum to be validated, with President Basescu and his political supporters urging people not to attend the poll, which they call a "coup d'etat" by the governing coalition.
UPDATE Preliminary turnout data for closing polls (11.00 p.m.) announced by the Central Electoral Office late in the night show 45.92% of the total number of listed voters cast their ballots in the referendum, less than the 50%+1 threshold for the referendum to be validated.

Polling stations across Romania opened early on Sunday for a referendum in which suspended President Traian Basescu faces the vote of the people, who are to choose whether to dismiss him from office or not. The referendum comes three weeks after a decision by the Parliament to suspend the President on grounds that he breached the Constitution, a move which has been described by Basescu and his supporters as a "coup d'etat" and which was based on measures harshly criticized across the European Union. The suspended head of state and his political supporters have urged the people to resist this by refusing to cast their vote today.
UPDATE 1 Voter turnout by 10.00 a.m. in the Sunday referendum was 9.05% of the population, the Central Electoral Office announced. Turnout was slightly higher in rural areas (an average of 9.10%) as well as in Bucharest, where turnout stood at 9.39%.
UPDATE 2 Voter turnout by 2.00 p.m. stood at 21.37%, according to data collected by the Central Electoral office
UPDATE 3 Turnout at 5.00 p.m. stood at a little more than half the needed votes for the referendum to be validated - 26.89%, according to estimations of the Central Electoral Office.
UPDATE 4 Voter turnout at 8 p.m., three hours before closing polls, stood at 37.67%, according to data announced by the Central Electoral Office.

​A document posted on the Internet and indicated by newspaper Adevarul depicts a deal signed by the leaders of Romania's governing coalition with a union of redundant military personnel, other trade unions and civil society organizations. It speaks of dismantling such key state institutions as the Constitutional Court, the National Integrity Agency, the National Anti-Corruption Department and the body studying the archives of the Communist-era secret police, the Securitate. The head of the redundant military personnel's union confirmed the document as real but said it was a draft deal which has to be discussed in detail. For his part, PM Victor Ponta said he only signed the first page of the document and that the story was fabricated by suspended President Traian Basescu's staff.

Recently uncovered minutes of the Romanian government's plot to steal Titan-Nadrag-Calan from Jewish industrialist Max Ausnit in 1941 are disturbingly similar to the recent efforts of a former Romanian government to confiscate 85% of his descendants' property rights in the same steel plant (as described in the May 2012 issue of The Romanian Digest).

• Read the first part of the article here

An ethical commission of the Bucharest University announced on Friday it has found that Romanian PM Victor Ponta's 2003 doctoral thesis included plagiarized text. This is the third verdict in the case, after two other academic bodies analyzed the text and made their own decisions on charges that Ponta was involved in an act of plagiarism: a first said he "copy-pasted" large amounts of text, while a second said he complied with the rules of 2003. The charges were first made public by Nature magazine last month and have since drawn huge media attention. The head of Romanian government has been quoted by Spanish El Pais newspaper as saying he would resign if a commission finds him guilty of plagiarism.
UPDATE PM Ponta reacted to the Bucharest University commission's verdict on Friday by saying the decision was "politically motivated".

"Romania needs to build on this record of success, to implement the remaining reforms under the benchmarks and to establish a clear, sustainable and irreversible track record of tackling corruption", UK Ambassador to Romania Martin Harris writes on his blog. "Romania's politicians, of all parties, have a particular responsibility. The Parliament needs to put its own house in order. It is extraordinary that convicted felons can still sit as MPs", he writes.

A very tough report of the European Commission on Romania's Justice system this week and the unexpected visit to Bucharest of the British Foreign minister were just as many cold showers for the people now in power in Bucharest. Their immediate effect was a decision by the Parliament to maintain a rule that 50%+1 of the registered voters have to cast their ballots in a referendum to dismiss suspended President Traian Basescu late this month. As a long term effect, the signals mean something else as well: Romania is no longer by itself in a world which invested in it both economically and geo-strategically.

The European Commission has issued a list of its requests on Romania, which were addressed to Romanian PM Victor Ponta on Thursday and aimed at Romania's continued compliance with European standards. The list includes tough points such as the dismissal of incompatible MPs, the reinstatement of certain rules for the validation of a referendum to impeach the President and avoiding naming people at a key anti-corruption body during the interim presidency of Crin Antonescu.

EU states are "a little too quiet" regarding the situation in Romania, European Parliament president Martin Schulz said in an interview for Le Monde, quoted by AFP. He made the statement following a controversial vote in the Romanian Parliament to suspend President Traian Basescu, which has raised questions about compliance with the country's constitution. For her part, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding was also quoted by AFP today saying the political crisis in Romania was a "great danger". The two spoke out on Romania as PM Victor Ponta, who's governing alliance has pushed for the suspension of the President, visits Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday.

​US Ambassador to Romania Mark Gitenstein says in a statement issued on Wednesday that a referendum in Romania "which appears inconsistent with the Constitution" would "knowingly provoke a very dangerous constitutional crisis". He notes that Romania's PM "is absolutely correct" that it is "unacceptable" to conduct such a referendum. Ambassador Gitenstein made the statement as Romania braces for a referendum late this month in which voters will be asked if they agree to remove President Basescu from office and debates are taking place on the constitutional and judicial framework of the referendum. The governing alliance hopes it would remove from office rival President Basescu - who was suspended by the Parliament on Friday.

Investigators of Romania's National Anti-Corruption Department (DNA) moved on the Supreme Council of Magistrates on Wednesday morning, targeting two prosecutors suspected of having negotiated with the country's prime minister the jobs of DNA chief prosecutor and Prosecutor General, according to judiciary sources quoted by Mediafax news agency. The DNA move comes the day when PM Victor Ponta leaves for Brussels where he is expected to explain his governing alliance's actions over the past two weeks to worried European officials.

​Romania's Constitutional Court announced late on Monday evening that the procedure to impeach President Traian Basescu last week was constitutional and that it found that an interim presidency in which Senate speaker Crin Antonescu takes over as head of state was justified. The Court analyzed five of seven cases in which decisions made during last week''s blitz procedures to impeach the president were challenged as "unconstitutional". The announcement came at the end of a day in which those procedures were subject of harsh criticism both at home and abroad.

A majority of Romanian MPs voted on Friday evening in favor of the impeachment of President Traian Basescu, at the end of a blitz series of procedures which the opponents of the governing alliance, many independent observers and EU voices described as breaching the rule of law and questioning the independence of Romanian justice and balance of power. Basescu now has to face a referendum in which - according to rules newly voted by the Parliament - a majority of active voters decides his dismissal of President.
UPDATE A referendum where Romanian voters will be asked if they agree with the dismissal of President Traian Basescu will be organized on July 29, according to a proposed bill on the organization of the referendum, announced in the Parliament today.

The Romanian Parliament convened on Friday afternoon to vote on a request to impeach President Traian Basescu. The votes of 217 members are needed to suspend the President, and the governing alliance of Social Democrats and Liberals (USL) hold by themselves 212 votes. The Constitutional Court issued an advisory ruling on the request earlier today, but gave no final ruling whether the arguments including in the impeachment request were valid. The vote comes as EU pressures intensify on USL, an alliance accused of threatening the rule of law. In his speech at the beginning of the Parliament session today, Basescu pointed out that, for USL, more important than his suspension the interest to take hold of all reigns of power, including justice.
UPDATE 8.10 p.m. Parliamentary debates are over. Voting on President Basescu's impeachment has started
UPDATE Senate speaker Crin Antonescu - a Liberal who is due to take over as interim President if Basescu is suspended, said he would witdraw from politics if Basescu is not dismissed in a referendum

Romania braces for a vote in the Parliament late on Friday afternoon on the impeachment of President Traian Basescu. Prior to the parliamentary session, the Constitutional Court gave its advisory ruling on the request to suspend the President, but the ruling was not clear and both supporters and opponents of the head of state gave their own interpretation of it. The Friday afternoon events were preceded by an announcement of the Constitutional Court that one if its judges received "threats", by PM Victor Ponta's statement attempting to assure European countries that they should not worry about events in Romania, but also by an European Commission statement showing concern about these events.
UPDATE The parliament session to suspend President Basescu started at 5 p.m.

The European Commission might postpone its report on Romanian justice, which was due early next week the latest, because an analysis is needed on the impact of measures taken by Romania's Victor Ponta Government and the Parliament over Justice institutions, several European sources told HotNews.ro. The possibility comes as several European officials have taken stand on the turmoil in Romanian politics, where a government alliance-led attempt to oust President Traian Basescu raised question marks about the independence of Justice and other institutions.

​Romania President Traian Basescu held a speech in Parliament today following the reading of a governing alliance USL's request for his suspension. He said he would welcome a parliamentary procedure to suspend him, but questioned the constitutional validity of the current one and said it had four reasons: the USL will to take control over Justice, the USL will to take control of all state institutions, a will to not apply the results of a previous referendum when people opted for a single-Chamber, 300-member parliament and a "circumstantial" will to cover prime minister Victor Ponta's "European" reputation as a "copy-paste prime minister".

Romanian MPs convened in an extraordinary session on Thursday morning for the reading of a request to suspend President Traian Basescu. Basescu was present in the Parliament when the reading started. As the final debate and a vote on the request are scheduled for Friday, the President has the right to present his own point of view before the MPs.​Romanian MPs convened in an extraordinary session on Thursday morning for the reading of a request to suspend President Traian Basescu. Basescu was present in the Parliament when the reading started. As the final debate and a vote on the request are scheduled for Friday, the President has the right to present his own point of view before the MPs.

Romania's Parliament convened on Wednesday for a session to launch the procedures to suspend President Traian Basescu, as sources told HotNews.ro. Political sources also told hotNews.ro that the Government has adopted an emergency ordinance changing a law on the functioning of the Constitutional Court. In the afternoon, the ordinance was already published in the Official Gazette. And a spokesman for one of the parties in the governing alliance told a TV station that the suspension of the President might be voted in the Parliament on Friday.

In a short statement on Tuesday evening, at the end of a series hallucinatory events in the Parliament, Romanian President Traian Basescu addressed parliamentary party leaders Victor Ponta, Crin Antonescu, Daniel Constantin, Gabriel Oprea and Kelemen Hunor demanding them, repeatedly, “to immediately cease their actions against the institutions of the Romanian state.  Naming them, a rather unusual twist in his latest statements, looks more like a warning.

Romania's governing alliance of Liberals and Social Democrats (USL) launched a massive series of moves on state institutions and key people in the Parliament, the Constitutional Court and the People's Lawyer (Ombudsman) on Tuesday. The moves fall in line with the phases of an action plan by USL - first presented by HotNews.ro in its Romanian version - to suspend President Traian Basescu, who the USL leaders see as the main obstacle in their taking over effective power in the country. Opposition leaders decried on Tuesday what they called a "coup d'etat" and a major attack on the Constitution and the state of law.
UPDATE Romanian USL-dominated Senators voted on Tuesday to dismiss Senate Speaker Vasile Blaga. USL immediately pushed its leader Crin Antonescu as new Speaker.
UPDATE 2 - 10.30 P.M. House Speaker Roberta Anastase - a member of Vasile Blaga-led Democratic Liberals (PDL), who support President Basescu - was also voted out of office by USL-dominated deputies on Tuesday evening. PSD immediately nominated deputy Valeriu Zgonea to be voted new House speaker.

Romania President holds a statement on Friday evening. He started his speech by demanding PM Victor Ponta, governing alliance leaders to stop "actions against institutions" of the Romanian state, which he says are in breach of European values.
UPDATE He concluded his speech in just a few minutes. Read his statements in full

"I am seriously concerned about recent attacks on the independence of the Constitutional Court of Romania," said European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding on Twitter on Tuesday. Her comments came as Romania's government has been pushing for changes at Constitutional Court level so that it allow new legislation that may help the governing alliance in its political struggles with President Traian Basescu.

"Manipulation or threats to your institutions particularly your courts will not only be of concern to our government but to the way Romania is viewed by financial markets", says US Ambassador to Romania Mark H. Gitenstein in a statement received by HotNews.ro. His statement comes as Romania's governing alliance of Social Democrats and Liberals (USL) have launched a series of moves on key people and institutions, including the Constitutional Court, which were described by USL political opponents, some media and commentators as "a coup d'etat" or attacks on the Constitution and the state of law.

All the information suggests that USL will force the President's suspension as soon as possible.  It is a matter of hours or of days at most.  From what I have learnt, Crin Antonescu dreams about moving in to Cotroceni Presidential Palace as soon as possible, possibly today.  Ponta and Antonescu are removing the Ombudsman [People's Lawyer], the judges from the Constitutional Court, the Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.  Vasile Blaga's replacement is a crucial move, because he is the second man in the state, and should the President of the country be suspended, the President of the Senate would become the interim at Cotroceni Presidential Palace. Very probably, Crin Antonescu will take Blaga's place.

A huge scandal involving accusations of plagiarism against Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta escalated on Friday. Sources told HotNews.ro a council checking the accusations that Ponta copied parts of his doctoral thesis from other works have found proof of plagiarism. But the council had just been dismissed in a complicated scheme of decisions that raised questions about compliance with the state of law under Ponta's 2-month old government. Ponta had said in an interview on Thursday that he would resign should accusations of plagiarism be proven.
UPDATE The CNATDCU council of scholars has decided: Ponta was involved in "copy-paste plagiarism case"

Weeks of clashes between Romania's new prime minister Victor Ponta and President Traian Basescu over who should represent the country at the European Council came to a last minute conclusion on Thursday. Despite a Constitutional Court decision that going to the European Council was the President's job, Ponta went to Brussels anyway today and was admitted as Romania's representative. After a tense first half of day, President Basescu made press statements saying that he didn't go to Brussels in order to avoid "an awkward position" for Romania". And he said Romania was "legitimately present, but illegitimately represented at the European Council" this week.

A surgical intervention Romanian ex-PM Adrian Nastase underwent on Thursday morning after he attempted suicide on Wednesday evening concluded successfully, medics announced today. They said the patient was "lucky" to survive as the bullet he shot in the attempt to kill himself came close to vital organs. Also on Thursday, Nastase's legal representative said a request would be submitted shortly so that a prison sentence the former prime minister received yesterday be suspended on medical grounds.

Former Romanian PM Adrian Nastase was rushed to a Bucharest hospital from his home late on Wednesday, amid claims on TV news channels that he attempted to kill himself. The incident comes hours after Romania's High Court gave Nastase a final 2-year prison sentence in a corruption case. Nastase is the highest official in the country to receive such a sentence under corruption charges.
UPDATE 0.30 The High Court prosecutor's office announced it received a report regarding Nastase's suicide attempt and has opened an investigation into the situation. Reports say Nastase shot himself in the neck in the attempt to kill himself. Current PM Victor Ponta visited the emergency hospital later in the night before Nastase was to undergo an emergency surgical intervention,
UPDATE 8.00 a.m. Emergency hospital doctors told TV stations later in the night that Nastase's condition was stable and he would undergo surgery most probably in the morning.

Romania's High Court maintained on Wednesday a 2 year prison sentence applied by the same court for former prime minister Adrian Nastase earlier this year. The final verdict in the so-called "Quality Trophy" case is unprecedented in Romania, as Nastase is the highest ranking former official in the country to be sentenced for corruption in the country. The case relates to Nastase's 2004 election campaign, when according to the charges he covered fund raising for the campaign by organizing a fee-based symposium. The verdict was announced three years and four months since the case was sent to court.
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A group of 612 top Romanian researchers have published a letter of protest about a recent decision by Romanian authorities to suspend the access of Romanian universities and researchers to important electronic collections of scientific journals and data bases, according to a Contributors.ro report. The move, they say, leads to the isolation of the Romanian research community to internationals scientific information.

Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta dismissed accusations of plagiarism in the case of his his PhD thesis in statements he made on Monday evening and Tuesday morning. He said he was ready to stand before any commission to show the allegations were baseless and that he believed President Traian Basescu was behind the appearance of the accusations in Nature magazine.

​Nature magazine reports that Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta is accused of plagiarism for his PhD thesis in law, which was published in 2003. "Nature has seen documents compiled by an anonymous whistle-blower indicating that more than half of Ponta’s 432-page, Romanian-language thesis on the functioning of the International Criminal Court consists of duplicated text", Nature writes. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also published an article on the alleged act of plagiarism by the head of the Romanian Government.

A candidate for Romanian populist party Dan Diaconescu Popular Party (PPDD) was elected mayor in Deveselu, a town which is due to host elements of the US missile shield. Ion Aliman, a ship captain, won 54% of the votes, defeating the incumbent mayor, a Social Democrat.

The mayor of a town on the outskirts of Bucharest, Jilava, best known for hosting a major penitentiary, comes first in the race for a new term in office, despite being under arrest. Mayor Adrian Mladin, charged with corruption, is the candidate with the most votes after vote counting in 185 of a total of 215 sections in the town.

Romania's central electoral office announced the first official partial results of the Sunday local elections on Monday morning. According to the preliminary results, the governing Social Liberal Union (USL) won 52% of votes for County Councils and County Council presidents, as compared to Democratic Liberal's (PDL) 13%, while the populist Dan Diaconescu Popular Party (PPDD) won 7% of the vote. For local councils, USL leads with 42.7% of the votes, PDL - 15.78%. USL also leads in the race for mayor terms with 52.27% against PDL's 15.8%.

Romanians voted strongly in favor of the new governing coalition of Social Democrats and Liberals (USL) in local elections on Sunday, after years of Democratic Liberal (PDL) government which applied a long series of austerity measures but which, according to rivals, had lost its legitimacy. USL claimed a strong lead across the country with major wins in Bucharest and other cities, while here and there a close vote remains to be settled.

Romania's governing Social Liberal Union (USL) crushed opposition Democratic Liberals (PDL) in local elections on Sunday. According to a nation-wide poll presented by Romanian news channel Romania TV as polling stations closed at 9 p.m., USL won 60% of the votes at national level, as compared to 11% for Democratic Liberals and 10% for the fringe, populist Dan Diaconescu Popular Party. In Bucharest, 66% of the votes went for incumbent, USL-supported mayor Sorin Oprescu and only 16% for his main PDL challenger Silviu Prigoana.
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Close to 30 percent of Romanian voters showed up at polling stations across Romania to cast their ballots in local elections by 2 p.m. on Sunday. The figures for the first hours of voting seem significantly higher than during the 2008 local elections.
UPDATE Voter turnout at 5 p.m. stood at 39.01% at national level, about 5 percentage points higher than in the 2008 local elections.

​Romanians vote in local elections on Sunday which comes with a first for the country's democratic process - mayors are now elected in a single, uninominal, winner-takes-all round. The poll comes at the end of a dull electoral campaign and is expected to be influenced by huge voter apathy. The campaign has been felt in a limited number of cities, where candidates of the governing parties and of the opposition are close in the top of the polls. The battle is closest in the cities of Cluj, Braila and Craiova, as well as in Bucharest Districts 3 and 6.

Most prefects, mayors, county council presidents and their deputies moved their businesses on the names of their relatives to avoid being accused of conflict of interests but they continue to do business with the state. Salaries of Romanians increased n November, for the first time in the last 8 months. Hungarian Ambassador in Romania Oskar Fuzes declared that if the EU will not expand Schengen, it will be a failure.

Romanian Giulian Dimitriu made a sculpture in marble of the famous artist that dominates the world of music currently. The statue was included in the Fashion Age collection, together with Mata Hari , Elan and Heshee statues. 

IMF board approved on Friday the sixth evaluation of the agreement with Romania and its supplementary letter so that the institution will release the seventh installment worth about 900 million euro that will be delivered most probably on Monday in the account of the Romanian National Bank, Romanian news agency Mediafax reads.

Romania’s commercial deficit dropped in the first 11 months of last year by 3.54% to 8.63 billion euro, from 8.95 billion euro in the same period in 2009 according to the Romanian National Statistics Institute. The decrease of the commercial deficit was mainly caused by an increase of exports and their advance to imports.

Romania needs to report further progress in 2011 so that it keep up with plans to join the euro in 2015, but reforms might take two years, which may change the date of euro adoption, Romanian National Bank (BNR) Governor Mugur Isarescu said on Tuesday.

Czech group CEZ sold by the end of 2010 its shares in the project to conclude works at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant in Romania, a press release of the group reads. It says the announcement of an intention to sell the 9.15% of shares held by CEZ in Energonuclear SA company was made in late 2010 and that the shares were sold to Nuclearelectrica SA, the majority shareholder in the project to build reactors 3 and 4 of the Cernavoda plant. Contacted by HotNews.ro, CEZ informed the shares were sold for 7.4 million RON.

Romania's government has a clear decision on rationalising social spending, which have a considerable weight in the consolidated budget - social spending amounts to 69 billion lei, of a total spending of 200 billion, Finance minister Gheorghe Ialomitianu said at a conference on European issues in Bucharest on Thursday.

National Liberal Party President Crin Antonescu and Conservative Party leader Daniel Constantin will sign, on Monday the protocol for the creation of the Center Right Alliance and all odds are that the alliance will be registered in court as well in the same day.

Unemployment rate in the EU dropped in April to 9.4% from 9.5% in the previous month and the one in the euro zone was 9.9% to a similar level to the one registered in March according to Eurostat data. In the similar period of 2010, the unemployment rate was 9.7% in the EU and of 10.2% in the euro zone.

Romania and Bulgaria will not join Schengen at the end of March, as their leaders were hoping because the Bulgarian evaluation report on the security of Bulgarian borders is negative, several European diplomats declared on Friday at Brussels, AFP reads quoted by Romanian news agency Mediafax.

Israeli Foreign Affairs minister called for help to Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Spain and France to sent specialized planes to attend the operations to extinguish the fire that broke nearby Haifa, Haaretz announces.