Intrarea completă a României în spaţiul Schengen este un moment istoric care trebuie marcat adecvat, semnificaţia lui trecând mult dincolo de implicaţiile economice imediate, a declarat, joi, pentru AGERPRES, economistul-şef al ING Bank România, Valentin Tătaru.

„Intrarea completă în spaţiul Schengen este un moment istoric care trebuie marcat adecvat, semnificaţia lui trecând mult dincolo de implicaţiile economice imediate. Referitor la acestea din urmă, România are acum datoria să completeze această reuşită cu ceea ce ar putea să o pună în valoare cel mai bine: o reţea de autostrăzi moderne care să traverseze România şi să unească toate regiunile ţării. Pe lângă creşterea atractivităţii României pentru investiţiile străine (şi ştim că România a pierdut investiţii în trecut din cauza infrastructurii precare la care se adaugă şi faptul că nu eram membri Schengen), firmele româneşti vor avea şi ele şansa de a se conecta mai eficient la pieţele din vest. Noul statut deschide de asemenea calea pentru transformarea României într-un hub logistic pentru viitorul proces de reconstrucţie a Ucrainei”, a spus Valentin Tătaru.

Miniştrii de Interne din ţările UE au aprobat joi dimineaţa, la Bruxelles, aderarea României şi Bulgariei la spaţiul Schengen cu frontierele terestre, începând de la 1 ianuarie 2025.

The completion of Romania’s accession to the Schengen area means a significant reduction in waiting times at the border and, respectively, of logistics and transport costs, the stimulation of tourism and related services, so that we will become even more attractive for investors and we will strengthen our strategic position, the executive director of the Concordia Employers’ Confederation, Radu Burnete said on Thursday.

„Today we have the official confirmation that, from January 1, 2025, Romania and Bulgaria are consolidating their integration into the Single Market by fully joining the Schengen Area, with land borders”, according to a press release from the Confederation, sent to AGERPRES on Thursday.

This decision, also supported by the European business milieu through the Warsaw Declaration of the Presidents of BusinessEurope, reflects both the spirit of unity and what we hope will be a new impulse of the EU towards the growth and consolidation of competitiveness, for the benefit of its companies and citizens, the release reads.

„In practical terms, the completion of Romania’s accession to the Schengen area means the significant reduction in waiting times at the border and respectively of logistics and transport costs, the stimulation of tourism and related services and, last but not least, streamlining regional supply chains at the Black Sea All these elements of cost and ease of doing business will make us even more attractive to investors and will strengthen us, at the same time, the strategic position”, Radu Burnete said.

Concordia Employers’ Confederation represents over 3,000 companies with Romanian and foreign capital from 17 essential industries that produce more than a quarter of Romania’s GDP and employ over 350,000 employees.

The ministers of interior from the EU countries, gathered in the Council of Justice and Internal Affairs, decided to lift the controls on people at the internal land borders with and between Bulgaria and Romania starting from January 1, 2025, the Council of the European Union announced in a statement posted on consilium.europa.eu website.

„It is a historic moment to finally welcome Bulgaria and Romania as full Schengen members. Lifting controls on people at the internal land borders with and between these member states was a top priority for the Hungarian presidency (of the EU Council) and today we made it a reality. This step will be beneficial not only for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, but also for the EU as a whole”, said Hungarian Interior Minister Sandor Pinter, after Thursday’s decision.

Since their accession to the EU, Bulgaria and Romania have applied parts of the Schengen legal framework (the Schengen acquis), including those related to external border controls, police cooperation and the use of the Schengen Information System. On December 30, 2023, the Council adopted the decision to apply, from March 31, 2024, the remaining parts of the Schengen acquis and to lift the controls on people at the internal air and sea borders.

Federaţia Rusă va încerca să obţină controlul asupra Parlamentului Republicii Moldova anul viitor, când urmează să aibă loc alegeri parlamentare, a declarat joi directorul Serviciului de Informaţii şi Securitate (SIS), Alexandru Musteaţa, care a prezentat în plenul legislativului un raport despre implicarea Federaţiei Ruse în alegerile prezidenţiale şi referendumul constituţional din 2024 prin intermediul organizaţiei criminale conduse de oligarhul fugar Ilan Şor, notează news.ro.

Directorul SIS a menţionat, printre altele, că statul rus va încerca să implementeze în 2025 aceeaşi strategie ca şi până acum, pentru a obţine control asupra Parlamentului Republicii Moldova. Potrivit oficialului, pentru a-şi atinge scopul, Moscova va încerca să infiltreze în mediul politic persoane şi entităţi afiliate sau aflate sub controlul său, scrie NewsMakwer.

„Strategia lor a fost, este şi va fi şi în 2025 infiltrarea în mediul politic a persoanelor şi entităţilor afiliate sau controlate, inclusiv acoperit de către Federaţia Rusă, în scopul obţinerii controlului asupra Parlamentului şi, respectiv, a celorlalte instituţii din ţară. Această strategie mizează pe corupţie politică şi electorală, dezinformare şi manipulare, dar şi acţiuni stradale şi dezordine”, a menţionat el.

Organizaţia criminală condusă de Ilan Şor a încercat să influenţeze rezultatele alegerilor prezidenţiale şi ale referendumului constituţional din octombrie printr-o schemă de corupere electorală. Conform anchetei, organizaţia Şor a mobilizat peste 130.000 de persoane pentru a influenţa votul, folosind fonduri de la PSB Bank, o bancă rusească sancţionată internaţional. Procurorii estimează că numărul celor implicaţi ar putea depăşi 300.000 , iar în perioada septembrie-octombrie au fost identificaţi 39 de milioane de dolari care au circulat prin reţea.

Directorul SIS a menţionat, printre altele, că statul rus va încerca să implementeze, în 2025, aceeaşi strategie ca şi până acum, pentru a obţine control asupra Parlamentului Republicii Moldova.

The Bucharest Stock Exchange closed mixed the trading session on Thursday, the index variations being between -0.37% and 1.22%.

The total value of the transactions amounted to 58.24 million RON, respectively 11.71 million euros, of which share transactions exceeded 48.18 million RON (9.69 million euros). The most liquid stocks on the regulated market were Transilvania Bank, with exchanges of 10.40 million RON, followed by OMV Petrom shares, with 7.51 million RON, and Sphera Franchise Group – 6.30 million RON.

The main index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BET, which includes the 20 most traded companies listed on the Regulated Market, depreciated by 0.04%, to 17,387.77 points, and BET-Plus, which shows the evolution of the most liquid 43 of shares, closed down by 0.07%.

The broad blue-chip BET-XT index of the 25 most liquid stocks rose 0.11%, while the SIF index BET-FI gained 1.22%.

The BET-BK index, the yield benchmark of investment funds, registered an advance of 0.63%, and the BET-NG, which measures the evolution of the ten energy and utility companies, closed down by 0.37%.

The BET AeRO index, which includes 20 representative companies on the AeRO market, appreciated by 1.01%.

The best developments were registered by Sinteza (+14.29%), TTS (Transport Trade Services) (+13.79%) and Simtel Team (+10.71%).

On the other hand, the most important decreases were recorded by the shares of Promateris (-8.22%), Chimcomplex Borzesti (-7.35%) and Bermas (-3.92%).

Justice Minister Alina Gorghiu said on Thursday, after the Supreme Court decided the retrial of dissident Gheorghe Ursu’s case, that the truth about the crimes of communism must be known, otherwise extremist political ideologies will always make their way into the public arena.

„The High Court of Cassation and Justice has today admitted the appeal of the PJCCJ [the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice] in the case of the anti-communist dissident Gheorghe Ursu and ordered the case to be retried at the Bucharest Court of Appeal. I am glad that I had the chance to see such a reparation, even partial! I hope for a complete one after the retrial! I thank the prosecutors for having made all the steps this year and I thank justice that in December 2024 we are closer to a verdict in line with the historical truth,” wrote Alina Gorghiu on her Facebook page.

According to the minister, fundamental human rights and freedoms are „fundamental values” of today’s democratic Romania.

„The truth about the crimes of communism must be known, otherwise extremist political ideologies will always have their place in the public space,” Gorghiu emphasized.

The High Court of Cassation and Justice on Thursday overturned the acquittal of former Securitate officers Marin Pirvulescu and Vasile Hodis, who tortured dissident Gheorghe Ursu, and their case will be retried from ground zero.

The decision follows the admission of requests for review filed by prosecutors and Andrei Ursu, son of Gheorghe Ursu.

In October 2023, the Prosecutor General’s Office requested the annulment of the decision, by way of revision, by which torturers Marin Pirvulescu and Vasile Hodis were acquitted by the Supreme Court for the crime of inhumane treatment.

The prosecutors argued in the request for review that there are facts or circumstances that were not known to the judges when they solved the case of Gheorghe Ursu’s torturers.

Thus, the Prosecutor’s Office stated that it had received from the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives documents containing data and information, accompanied by technical details, which were not known to the magistrates during the trial.

In addition, a documentary material from the Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER), elaborated in collaboration with the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History, was submitted, regarding the cases and human rights violations in Romania between 1980 and 1989.

In his turn, Andrei Ursu, the dissident’s son, said that the acquittal decision was a shock for all those who know the case of Gheorghe Ursu’s murder and maintained that the Securitate still has direct or subliminal possibilities to influence some of the people in the judiciary.

IICCMER also argued that the acquittal of former Securitate officers Marin Pirvulescu and Vasile Hodis represents a threat to the rule of law and is in flagrant contradiction with the historical truth, opening the way to the rehabilitation of the totalitarian regime.

On July 27, 2023, the High Court of Cassation and Justice ordered the final acquittal of former Securitate officers Marin Pirvulescu and Vasile Hodis, accused of torturing the dissident Gheorghe Ursu.

In the acquittal decision, the judges reasoned that Gheorghe Ursu was not an opponent of the communist regime and was not in adversarial relations with the Securitate, so that the offense of inhumane treatment cannot be held against the officers who investigated him.

Another sentence in the judges’ reasoning that scandalized public opinion was that in 1985 it could not be held that the repression organized by the Securitate was systematic and would have been exercised through information control of „the entire active population”, but that it was only „a conflict limited to a few people”.

Moreover, the judges considered that during the Ceausescu regime there was no clear intention to systematically exterminate any opposition from the state authorities.

Gheorghe Ursu, a construction engineer, poet and writer, was investigated by the Securitate in the 1980s after he sent letters to Radio Free Europe and kept a diary in which he wrote about the horrors of the communist regime.

Between January and November 1985, Gheorghe Ursu was the subject of information and judicial prosecution for acts or deeds considered hostile to the communist regime, and was arrested on September 21, 1985. He died on November 17, 1985.

The military prosecutors established that Marin Pirvulescu and Vasile Hodis exercised repressive and systematic actions (surveillance, information pursuit, searches, systematic hearings, acts of physical and psychological violence) on Gheorghe Ursu, actions that „resulted in the production of serious physical or mental suffering and were likely to seriously infringe his fundamental rights and freedoms, in particular his right to life”.

The dissident’s son, Andrei Ursu, maintains that it was Mihai Pirvulescu who first investigated Gheorghe Ursu while he was in liberty. Because the latter refused to denounce his friends, among them the well-known writers Nina Cassian, Geo Bogza, Radu Cosasu, the Securitate decided to „continue the investigations under arrest”, „so as to clarify the nature of the relationships with the latter”.

In order to try to avoid a case of political persecution that would have been unfavorable to the Ceausescu regime internationally, the Securitate framed Gheorghe Ursu for a common law case (for possession of 17 dollars), for which it arrested him on September 21, 1985. He was imprisoned in a cell with two common-law prisoners, Marian Clita and Gheorghe Radu, who were ordered by the Securitate to use violence against him.

The engineer died after being beaten by Marin Pirvulescu and other Securitate officers, as well as after being assaulted by the common law detainees.

So far, three people have been convicted in this case: Colonel (r) Tudor Stanica, then head of the Militia in the capital, Colonel (r) Mihai Creanga, his deputy, and Marin Clita, the dissident’s cellmate.

Tudor Stanica, who died recently, did not serve a single day in prison, citing medical reasons, after having obtained in court 22 requests for deferment of execution of sentence. Mihai Creanga escaped after ten years, and common-law inmate Marin Clita got out after nine years for good behavior. Clita is currently back in prison, serving a 14-year sentence received in Denmark for allegedly killing a stewardess in a Copenhagen hotel room.

Ministerul Finanţelor a împrumutat joi suma totală de 2,28 miliarde de lei de la bănci, prin două licitaţii cu titluri de stat, la dobânzi de 6,49% şi 7,19% pe an, potrivit news.ro

În prima licitaţie, Ministerul Finanţelor a redeschis o emisiune de obligaţiuni tip benchmark scadentă în aprilie 2035 şi a împrumutat de la bănci 562 mil. lei, sub valoarea programată, de 600 mil. lei, la o dobândă anuală de 7,19%.

La licitaţie au participat 7 dealeri primari, adică cei care au cumpărat obligaţiunile, trimiţând oferte atât în cont propriu, cât şi în contul clienţilor persoane fizice şi juridice.

Volumul total al cererii a fost de 861,5 mil. lei, din care băncile au oferit în nume şi cont propriu 462 mil. lei.

Din suma totală adjudecată, de 562 mil. lei, băncile au oferit în nume şi cont propriu 412 mil. lei.

La cea de-a doua licitaţie, Ministerul Finanţelor a redeschis o emisiune de obligaţiuni tip certificate de trezorerie cu discount scadentă în noiembrie 2025 şi a împrumutat de la bănci suma de 1,72 mld. lei, la o dobândă anuală de 6,49%.

La licitaţie au participat 8 dealeri primari.

Volumul total al cererii a fost de 2,16 mld. lei.

Din suma totală adjudecată, de 1,72 mld. lei, băncile au oferit în nume şi cont propriu 1,69 mld. lei, în timp ce ofertele necompetitive au fost de 25,4 mil. lei, scrie Ziarul Financiar.