Brussels, 16/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union have postponed by one week a planned visit to Romania and will travel to the country after the referendum to depose the president scheduled for 29 July, the Romanian Prime Minister, Victor Ponta, announced on Monday, according to news agency Reuters. “This is a standard procedure. The IMF and the European Union have always preferred not to arrive during an election campaign”, Ponta told a press conference. The visit of the IMF and EU delegation was due to start on 24 July and has been postponed until 31 July, the prime minister stated.
Faced with serious recession in 2009 and 2010, Romania had to fall back on a €20 billion IMF, EU and World Bank emergency plan. The Centre-Right government which was in power at the time, until it fell in a vote of no-confidence in May, adopted draconian austerity measures in exchange, in order to redress public finances. It is these austerity measures which have been blamed on President Basescu, justifying the launch of the procedure to remove him by the Centre-Left coalition, Ponta's Social Liberal Union. With the procedure having been validated by the Romanian Parliament on 6 July and Basescu temporarily suspended, his removal from office will not be permanent until after the referendum of 29 July.
This internal political strife and a number of measures curtailing the powers of institutions such as the Romanian constitutional court have in any case led the Commission in recent weeks to increase its monitoring of Romania and to call on Prime Minister Ponta to provide a series of explanations. Summoned to Brussels on 12 July, he was asked by the Commission to reverse some of the measures felt to be potentially dangerous to Romanian democracy and Ponta gave an undertaking to respond in writing to all of the Commission's charges in writing as soon as possible. On Monday 16 July, however, the Commission had still not received these written commitments, according to Commission spokesperson Olivier Bailly. The Commission and Bucharest were in close contact over the whole weekend, the spokesperson continued, and “we are awaiting the confirmation” in writing of Ponta's commitments. The spokesperson added that there was “no time to lose”. On Wednesday 18 July, the Commission will publish its annual report on the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), in which it will report all the events of recent weeks, the spokesperson pointed out. (SP/transl.fl)