Press review - September 24, 2018

09.24.2018 By Oana Gavrila

Three-Month Money Market Rate Reaches Two-Week High, At 3.14%

The three-month money market interest rate used to calculate interests for consumer loans in lei rose to 3.14% on Friday, from 3.10% a year registered on Thursday, central bank data showed.

On September 6, the three-month interest rate was 3.15%, followed by a decline to 3.12% on September 7.

Social Democrat Party Executive Committee Supports Party Leader In Power Struggle

The Social Democrat Party’s Executive Committee voted on Friday to support Liviu Dragnea as chairman, despite calls from high-ranked party opponents for the current leader should step down.

Dragnea announced that the party decided with 54 votes for, eight against and one abstention in favor him maintaining his offices as chairman of both the party and Romania s Lower Chamber.

However, one of Dragnea’s main critics, Gabriela Firea announced a tighter vote, with 39 in favor of the current leader, 10 votes against and two abstentions.

A dissent letter published on Wednesday requested the PSD chairman’s resignation, due to the party falling in polls and his popularity being at an all-time low of 7-12%, while also mentioning his legal problems as a liability for the party’s image.

Beyond internal party demands, the letter also sets a number of requests for the Government and party lawmakers, pleading for support of critical infrastructure projects, a bill regulating political lobby and unconditional support for the pending pensions law, but also for passing the new judicial bills and a bill regarding amnesty and pardoning.

Arad Mayor Accused Of Blocking 21,000 Signatures For No Convicts In Public Offices Campaign

The Arad branch of Romanian opposition party USR requested the resignation of mayor Gheorghe Falca on Friday, who they accused of blocking all signatures obtained in the city for the “No Convicts in Public Office” campaign.

According to USR Arad, the Arad town hall failed to verify more than 21,000 signatures gathered in the city before the deadline for filing them at a national level was reached on Friday.

This brings the county’s total number of signatures under the legal requirement of 20,000, with other townships through the Arad county validating about 9,000 signatures.

“The signatures were kept at the town hall, although there was a legal deadline to verify them, which was passed a long time ago. Either if it’s about ill-will or a lack of organizational capacity, both are reasons powerful enough to warrant the mayor’s resignation,” USR Arad announced in a press release.

The Arad Town Hall later replied that they would actually finish the procedure of validating the signatures on Friday and that there was no intent to block the validation process, blaming the delay on the signatures being filed in two tranches.

Weather Cools Considerably Starting Sunday Night

The weather will start cooling significantly as of Sunday night, reaching temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Celsius lower than normal for this time of year.

Meteorologists said wind gusts of 50-60 km/hour are to be expected on September 23-26 and rain will fall in the west, center and north parts of the country, spreading to other regions. Mixed precipitation is expected at altitudes of over 1,800 m.

As of Tuesday, cold weather is expected throughout the entire country until the end of the week.