Romania’s President Traian Basescu attended the Union for the Mediterranean summit

Romania's President Traian Basescu (C) is greeted by France's President Nicolas Sarkozy (L) and Egypt's President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak (R) as he arrives at the EU-Mediterranean summit in Paris, July 13, 2008. Some 43 heads of state and government are attending the French-inspired summit intended to revitalize cooperation between the European Union and Mediterranean countries. (REUTER photo)

Reconciliation of the Mediterranean region, economic development, food and energy crises, but also migration from northern Africa were the main topics on the agenda of the summit in Paris. Romania was represented by President Basescu and FM Lazar Comanescu.

The companies from Mediterranean countries would come back to Romania due to the political framework guaranteed by the ties of EU with the states in the region, President Traian Basescu said yesterday before leaving for Paris to attend the summit for the Mediterranean region.

Basescu explained that talks would focus on Mediterranean states’ economic development, food and energy crises and migration from northern Africa to EU countries. The main objective of the summit, under French patronage, was the official launch of the initiative “Barcelona Process: a Union for the Mediterranean,” a project aimed at revitalizing efforts to make the Mediterranean a region of peace, democracy, cooperation and prosperity.

The summit was attended by leaders from over 40 countries. Besides the 27 EU members, the meeting brought together leaders of Libya, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Israel, the Palestinian authority, Jordan, Mauritania, Albania and others. President Basescu said Romania would support Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and Monaco to obtain membership of the Barcelona Process.

High on the agenda was food and energy crises, but also issues related to fighting extremism and terrorism in the area, in the context of Romania’s involvement in NATO exercises in the region, said Basescu. Other issues that were discussed included security of transports and the fight against illegal immigration, but also civil protection for Mediterranean states and assistance the EU can give these states in case of natural disasters. Basescu added that Romania would transfer diplomatic experience to the EU in efforts to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. “The presence of Israel and the Palestinian authority in the process is of great interest for us. (…) The process offers us the possibility of bringing the experience of Romanian diplomacy in the region, in a much stronger shape, this time by transferring experience in the European Union, which will be an extremely active factor in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he said. Basescu will remain in Paris today as well, as he was invited by his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, to attend France National Day events.

The highlight of yesterday’s summit was the presence of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, together with 40 other leaders including Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the first time Israeli and Syrian leaders were in the same room, according to Reuters. The two countries recently began indirect peace talks with Turkish mediation. The diplomatic breakthrough enabled Assad to emerge from isolation in the West three years after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, which many believe was orchestrated from Damascus.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said it was time the region put years of strife behind it and forge new ties with European Union states on the pressing issues of the day.

“The project is quite simply about taking in hand the big challenges of the century ahead,” Kouchner told a pre-summit meeting of foreign ministers from all the states involved.

“Climate change, worsening of the environment, access to water and energy, migration, dialogue between civilizations, the Mediterranean is at the heart of all the issues on which our future depends,” he added.

But the Paris summit, a diplomatic success for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the EU’s rotating presidency, may be richer in symbolism than substance, at least to start with. France and Egypt will be the first countries to co-chair the new body, but details such as the location and powers of its secretariat remain to be resolved, and the Middle East conflicts that bedevilled past EU-Mediterranean cooperation loom large. Sarkozy was able to boast that all the leaders of the southern Mediterranean region except Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi would be present, whereas only one attended a 2005 Euro-Mediterranean summit in Barcelona. The French leader booked a first success on Saturday when he hosted talks between Assad and Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, who agreed to normalise relations between Damascus and Beirut for the first time since independence in 1943. During a joint press conference with the two leaders, Sarkozy announced that both countries agreed to open diplomatic missions in each other’s capital cities.

Romania’s President Basescu again slams the judiciary system

President Traian Basescu once again criticised the magistrates who allow judicial information to leak to the media, and the judges and police officers who have “inappropriate” connections with the organised crime.

During a meeting on Wednesday with the judges and prosecutors who passed the exam organised by the Superior Council of Magistrates, the President stated that there were too many criminal cases which have been inadequately put together by prosecutors and deliberately delayed by judges.

“There are cases in which judges have inappropriate ties to organised crime milieu. Prosecutors and police officers have the same sort of connections. I know this is a festive day, but this is not to mean that I am not entitled to tell you that these are things that make the Romanian justice system not credible enough. You are often required to judge or investigate people whose positions are a lot higher than yours, which put you at a disadvantage,” the Head of State told the magistrates present at the Cotroceni Palace.

On the other hand, Prosecutor General of Romania, Laura Codruta Kovesi warned the magistrates appointed to office by Traian Basescu that they will have to cope with legislative inconsistencies and the distrust of the society.

Italian Govt to ignore EU fingerprint vote

Rome - Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said Thursday that Italy would continue to take fingerprints during a government census of gypsy camps despite a European Parliament (EP) recommendation to stop.

Maroni said he was ''outraged'' by the non-binding EP resolution on Thursday, which called on Italy to abstain from collecting fingerprints or using those already collected ahead of a full evaluation of the measures by the European Commission (EC).

The EP motion, tabled by a group of left-wing Italian MEPs, held that fingerprinting adults and children in gypsy camps discriminates against race and ethnicity.

It was passed by 336 votes to 220, with 77 abstentions.

But Maroni said the recommendation was based on ''false suppositions'' and that the government plan to deal with gypsy camps was ''a battle for civility''.

''The Italian government will go ahead to the bitter end, in full and complete agreement with the European Commission,'' he said.

''Our aim is to put an end to the disgrace of nomad camps, which are worse than (Brazilian shanty-town) favelas.

''We want to create authorised, controlled camps where people can live in Italy in a dignified manner,'' added the minister, who says fingerprinting will help fight crime and identify illegal immigrants. Maroni received support from EU Affairs Minister Andrea Ronchi, who referred to the EP vote as ''one of the worst pages in the history of European institutions''.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said EP accusations of racism against the Italian government were ''totally unfounded'' and ''motivated by politics rather than any substance''.

''The EP adopted this resolution without waiting for the EC to begin their evaluation, which means they had no interest in hearing whether the measure is compatible with European law. For that reason I am not remotely embarrassed to defend this measure,'' said the former EU Justice Commissioner.

Opposition politicians praised the EP vote, which Shadow Interior Minister Marco Minniti described as ''confirming all of our doubts'' about the ''hateful discrimination'' of fingerprint collection. ''It's an important decision even if it's not binding,'' said Senate Deputy Speaker Emma Bonino of the Radical Party. ''We hope that this vote will help convince some mayors and the Interior Minister (Roberto Maroni) to change their minds,'' she said.

Italian sources say that, in a bid to avoid racist accusations, the fingerprint census would cover all citizens now living in Italy – while the Gypsy (Roma ethnics) fingerprinting would start first, only because it represent an urgent matter of public security.

EC TO RECEIVE CENSUS REPORT BY END OF JULY

European Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot on Thursday told the EP that Italy would send a full report on measures adopted for the gypsy census by the end of July.

Barrot pledged to collect all information on ''the purpose (of fingerprinting), the legal basis, how they will be preserved and if they will be used for other ends''.

The commissioner also said he had asked for particular clarification on the treatment of minors under the age of 14 and on the situation in the 17 Italian regions not involved in the government's current emergency plan.

So far, the city prefects of Milan, Naples and Rome charged with overseeing the census have taken different approaches to fingerprinting.

In Naples and Milan, where the census is already under way, fingerprints have only been taken from minors between the ages of 14 and 18 in Naples camps.

Milan prefect Gian Valerio Lombardi said fingerprinting will only be used in cases where gypsies refused to identify themselves.

Rome prefect Carlo Mosca said he had ruled out fingerprinting altogether but would require photos of gypsies who refused to identify themselves when the census starts in the capital next week.

In the wake of concerns over public safety, Maroni has pledged to dismantle all illegal camps as well as authorised camps that do not have adequate facilities.

Government plans also call for the expulsion of any immigrant found to be in Italy without the correct paperwork.

The vast majority of the 152,000 gypsies supposed to live in Italy are of Romanian origin, while a small percentage come from the Balkans.

Romania's leu hits the year's high of 3.5350 versus the euro, following regional trend

Romania's national currency, the leu, advanced to 3.5350 against the single European currency at the end of the day, continuing increasing trend to the highest peak this year, owing to investors' higher appetite for risk.

The leu climbed from 3.56 to 3.52 versus the euro this morning and then started to lose ground. Banks bought the euro with 3.5355 lei and sold it for 3.5415 lei at 5:15 p.m. (Bucharest time).

The reference exchange rate posted today by Romania's Central Bank (BNR) shows a 1.39 percent growth of the leu against the euro to 3.5434 and a 1.2 percent increase against the U.S. dollar to 2.2585.

On the international markets, the U.S. dollar dropped from 1.5651 to 1.5744 versus the euro. At 5:20 p.m. Romania's hour, the euro traded at 1.5728 U.S. dollars.

Interbank interests for overnight deposits stood close to the monetary policy rate set by the central bank at 10 percent per year.

Secret police shot at Romanian protesters back in 1989, court documents show

Bucharest - Romania's secret police (‘Securitate’), and not the army, fired on demonstrators during the revolt that toppled dictator Nicolae Ceausescu nearly two decades ago, court documents showed Wednesday. A previously unpublished defence ministry report released by the country's top court described how uniformed ‘Securitate’ members had infiltrated army ranks and opened fire during the protests.

The diary-like description of events covered the period from December 16-22, 1989 when more than 1,000 people died during anti- Ceausescu protests in Bucharest and other cities.

Exact details of events leading up to the dictator's downfall have never been fully disclosed.

Publication of the document was requested by lawyers for former defence minister Victor Atanasie Stanculescu and top army commander Mihai Chitac.

The two men are appealing their conviction and 15-year sentence for ordering the army to fire on demonstrators.

The worst clashes occurred in the west Romanian town of Timisoara to where Caeusescu dispatched Stanculescu with orders to put down the revolt.

Shortly after Ceausescu disappeared on December 22, 1989, it was revealed that the defence minister had joined the rebels, although it was not clear exactly when he changed sides.

Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were sentenced to death by a military court and executed on December 25, 1989.

Romanian Nabucco segment to be extended 25-year exemption from gas transmission pricing requirements

The National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) has approved a request by the Nabucco International Company (NIC) that the Romanian segment of the Nabucco gas pipeline be exempted from pricing requirements applicable to gas transmission and also from the provisions concerning access of third parties to transmission networks, reads a release issued by ANRE.

The exemption should be 25 years counted from the date when the first segment of Nabucco becomes operational.

For the Romanian segment, the rules concerning access of third parties to the Nabucco gas pipeline as well as taxation will be drawn up by NIC and submitted to the ANRE for approval.

NIC will have to extend equal and non-discriminatory access to all users to the gas pipeline.

The exemptions have been approved conditional upon observance of some conditions, such as the revision of pricing methods 20 years after the first Nabucco segment becomes operational, the company conducting a public offer to contract out the pipeline’s capabilities before commencement of construction works on the pipeline, preventing instances in which any of the shareholder in NIC would get to win a dominant position on the internal market, and designing a pricing system for the pipeline’s users that will range within 10% of the European averages charged under similar projects.

The exemptions will be limited to at most 50% of the total annual capacity technically available.

The exemption will be cancelled if the Romanian segment fails to be commissioned within five years after the European Commission approves a decision to grant the exemptions to all the four EU member states that the Nabucco gas pipeline will cross, but no later than December 31, 2014.

Transmitted through the Nabucco pipeline will be natural gas from Asia to Austria, via Turkey, Romania and Hungary.

In keeping with the provisions of the Romanian legislation and the European directive concerning the common European market in natural gas, the exemption decision will be submitted to the European Commission for consideration.

Officials of five companies - OMV of Austria, Botas of Turkey, Mol of Hungary, Transgaz of Romania and Bulgargaz of Bulgaria - making up the NIC and officials of Germany’s RWE utility early this February signed in Vienna an agreement on making RWE the sixth business partner in the project.

The World's Most Corrupt Countries

Corruption continues to intensify in two-fifths of the world's nations, nurtured by persistent poverty, political instability and crime.

In percentage terms, the number of countries perceived to be corrupt fell slightly, according to recent surveys by Transparency International, an international watchdog group, ‘Forbes’ reports today.

Of the 180 countries looked at in its most recent rankings, 132 had index scores below 5, including Greece, India, Mexico, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Thailand. Some 56 countries were rated below 3, a level that indicates rampant corruption, including Argentina, Pakistan and Russia.

Transparency International developed its index on a scale from 0 to 10, with the lowest number indicating the highest perception of corruption. The index is based on worldwide surveys of country specialists, business officials, human rights monitors and others.

For the most recent index, the best-scoring countries were New Zealand, Denmark and Finland, sharing an index ranking of 9.4. At the bottom of the heap, where perceptions of corruption were highest, Somalia and Myanmar are tied with an index ranking of 1.4.

[…] many countries that improved over the year are in Eastern Europe: Croatia (to 64 from 69), the Czech Republic (to 41 from 46), Macedonia (to 84 from 105) and Romania (up to 69 from 84). Italy went to 41 from 45.

"The concentration of gainers in Southeast and Eastern Europe testifies to the galvanizing effect of the European Union accession process on the fight against corruption," says Transparency International.