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Ponta III Gov't might ask confidence vote on political programme on Tuesday
The Executive headed by PM Victor Ponta is going to ask Parliament's confidence vote on its political programme this week, 'the quickest solution being on Tuesday afternoon,' according to the Chamber of Deputies Chairman Valeriu Zgonea.
'I hereby inform you of Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta's request, in accordance with Article 114, paragraph 1 of the Constitution of Romania, to convene the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in a joint meeting to debate the assuming of the Government's responsibility on a programme,' Zgonea said on Friday at the Parliament Palace.
He said that the Government asks a Parliament's confidence vote, in accordance with Article 114, on a programme, a declaration of general policy, or on a bill, which is different of Article 102 and 103 concerning the confidence vote on a governing programme, following the head of state's decisions to consult the political parties.
'If the Parliament finds that this programme does not meet the Government's goals set in the governing programme at the beginning of its mandate, in December 2012, then it will file a motion of censure. This is the instrument of the parliamentary system. If the Government is not dismissed because no motion of censure is filed, the bill or the application of the programme (...) becomes mandatory for the Government. Amendments are possible only for a bill. In all the other cases, if there is no motion of censure, the programme is published in the Official Gazette, and the Government must implement it,' Zgonea pointed out.
The Chamber of Deputies' Chairman added that Ponta's 3rd Cabinet is currently governing according to the programme passed by the Parliament in December 2012, and starting on Tuesday this document will be complete with the one on which the Government assumes its responsibility.
Governing program's diplomatic goals: Boosting, strengthening Romania's profile in EU, NATO
The Romanian diplomacy needs to be reconfirmed as a fundamental institution of the state and oriented towards strategic objectives such as those underlying the smooth exertion of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2019, and which should integrate with a long-term vision on Romania's global position and role, provides the ‘Foreign Affairs' Chapter of the Political Program the Government will pledge responsibility for before Parliament this week.
According to the document, the main objectives of the Romanian diplomacy are boosting and strengthening Romania's profile inside the European Union and NATO, and more effectively capitalizing on the benefits that derive from Romania's membership of the two structures, strengthening and developing the Strategic Partnership for the 21st Century with the U.S., continuing efforts for promoting and supporting the European integration of the Republic of Moldova, actively promoting the goal of transforming Romania's neighborhood - both in the Western Balkans, but especially the Eastern Neighborhood - in a democratic area of stability, prosperity, security and predictability, which is paramount to ensuring national security in its broadest sense.
At the same time, the Romanian diplomacy envisages defending and actively promoting the rights of persons belonging to Romanian minorities or communities in neighboring countries, under strict compliance with European standards and, where applicable, under observance of the political criteria for EU accession.
The political program also provides for 'maintaining the strong commitment to Schengen accession, which remains a legitimate goal based on the Accession Treaty according to which Romania has both the right and obligation to become a Schengen member state.'
In the document, the Strategic Partnership with the U.S. is described as 'the transatlantic dimension of the Romanian foreign policy and as Romania's most important partnership with global reach.'
'Expanding economic cooperation, attracting new American investments to Romania will be a priority. Consistent action will be taken to set the conditions in place for Romania's admission to the Visa Waiver Program, in the context of the U.S. promoting and adopting new relevant legislation. Inside the EU, Romania will support the expansion and deepening of the EU - U.S. partnership, which is essential for defining the Union's external strategic partnerships,' the Government's Political Program also states.
Political program in the judiciary aimed at reinforcing rule of law state
As far as the judiciary is concerned, the Government's objective is to modernize the judicial system and bring it closer to citizens, reinforce the rule of law state and increase the role of the Ombudsman, the Public Ministry and the Constitutional Court, says the political program for which the Executive is to take responsibility before Parliament this week.
To this end, the Government aims to improve the efficiency of the judiciary as a public service, consolidate the judicial system as an institution, improve the integrity of the judicial system, enhance the quality and transparency of the judicial act and the access to justice.
The Executive wants to improve the legislation, with this objective requiring the examination of all domestic laws, bringing them into line with the European legislation, republishing the normative acts, actions to be made together with the Parliament and Legislative Council, as well as continuing implementing the National Anti-corruption Strategy 2012-2015, the computerization of the judicial system, in accordance with the European standards and good practices.
Another priority, according to the governing program, is to continue the process aimed at setting up specialised tribunals (for family matters and children - the juvenile justice, courts with expertise in commercial matters, insolvency, contentious administrative matters) and to implement the concept 'Neighbourhood for Justice', in Bucharest and Romania's largest cities, with the aim of setting up the headquarters of courts and prosecution offices across the same urban perimeter. All these measures will lead to lower administrative costs and will bring the judiciary closer to citizens.
The Government's political program for education
Increasing the performance of the Romanian education system, ensuring social equity policies, the acquisition of skills and competencies that allow for the personal, intellectual and professional development in the context of lifelong learning, but also opening up the system of education, professional training and research to the society are listed as priorities of the Political Program the Government is to pledge responsibility for before Parliament this week.
The guaranteed social educational package provides the implementation of programs allowing the children's development and training from birth until coming of age. Through this package, parents will be offered assistance with raising newborns, adequate conditions for the children to be taken up in nurseries and then in the preschool education system. The package also provides for a quality education program in adequately equipped schools, aimed at properly shaping the students from the intellectual and professional point of view, while ensuring the necessary medical care services, as well as the children's physical development (in school sports clubs) and their socio-cultural growth.
Linking educational programs with the labor market will pursue to set the education plan on the correct fundamentals, correlating vocational and technical education with the requirements of employer companies, expanding extracurricular activities, developing professional practice/internship stints, changing the labor legislation with a view to allowing students over 16 to work during vacations.
In the field of training and education for national minorities, in the next decade, the Government must focus on ensuring the conditions for the pupils to adequately learn Romanian and their mother tongue, enhancing the admission capacity of mother tongue-based education, developing textbooks in the languages of national minorities for compulsory education and stimulating the development and/or translation of textbooks for the secondary and higher education, developing the network of school mediators and ensuring the access of every child belonging to minorities (ethnic Roma included) to basic education and encouraging their attending superior education.
'Romania must re-enter the market of education services for foreign students, a move that can garner it both prestige and important financial resources,' provides the cited political program.
The document also provides for the completion by the end of 2016 of the school campuses program tailored to zone-specific educational needs (boarding, canteen, workshops, scholarships, clothing, school supplies), and the completion of the school infrastructure investment program by 2016.
Fighting cross-border crime, increasing public security are prime goals of Interior Ministry
The Romanian Government, through the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MAI), will involve itself into increasing public security, fighting the cross-border crime and the crimes of Romanian citizens abroad and in increasing the life standards of Ministry's staff in order to restore the status of MAI employees, according to the political programme on which the Executive will ask for a confidence vote in the Parliament this week.
The Executive's main objectives, as set in the governing programme, refer to 'the continuous increase of the public security level, both in rural and urban areas:, to 'the improvement of police cooperation for fighting the cross-border crimes and the crimes of Romanian citizens abroad,' to 'reducing the bureaucracy of MAI structures, increasing the efficiency of these structures, and reassigning staff from the administrative apparatus to operational structures,' and to 'the analysis and improvement of the legal framework regulating the competencies in public order and security, emergency situations, and Prefects' institution activities.'
Moreover, public policies in the home affairs area support the increase of public security through fighting the street crime phenomenon, preventing and fighting corruption, preventing and fighting crime, fighting organized crime, fighting drug traffic, safer road traffic, emergency situations management and protection of critical infrastructure, and community public services closer to citizens (identity documents, licenses, passports, car registration).
The cooperation with institutions of the EU internal security system (FRONTEX, EUROPOL) are another essential component of the ministry's activity for the implementation of specific European policies; equally important is the cooperation with the INTERPOL and within regional cooperation formats in southeastern Europe; this will remain a major concern for the ministry's heads.
Gov't pursues proper EU funds management (political program)
The 3rd Victor Ponta Government pursues the fundamental strategic priority of the proper management of the European Union funds in the political program for which it is to seek a vote of confidence in Parliament next week; furthermore, in order to fulfil the objectives it plans to use as much as possible of the existing funds by the end of 2015 and better implement the funds relevant to the future 2014-2020 programming.
'In this respect, we make the EU money management more efficient by concentrating the Management Authority's function in three ministries - the Ministry of the EU Funds, the Regional Development and Public Administration Ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, that have showed performance in absorbing the EU funds and have capability and expertise available as well as by reinforcing the coordinating function in the EU Funds Ministry and to step up the pace of spending the EU funds in order to reach 50-80 percent absorption rate by Dec. 31, 2015', the program says.
The political program will continue the efforts for the implementation of the measures meant to remedy the shortcomings found by the European Commission in the functioning of the management and control systems of the operational programs with a view to unlock the situation and resume the payments from the European Commission.
The program also wants simplified legislation relating the promotion and approval of the investment projects in Romania and the revision of the conditions of the work contracts applicable to the publicly-funded projects, based on the experience in conducting internationally-funded investment projects during 2000-2012.
The Government will back the definite-period subsidizing of the private sector jobs, for at least the following brackets: students in terminal years, young graduates, youths aged over 18 who leave the child protection institutions, homeless people, persons living on the minimum guaranteed income, unemployed, persons over 45 years of age, retirees included by paying their salaries from the European Social Fund and via the Human Development Resources Operational Sectoral Program for 2007-2013.
Gov't political program: Minimum salary going up to 1,200 lei by 2016
The gradual 5 percent cut in the social security contributions (SSC) owed by the employer and the progressive rise in the minimum salary in the economy up to 1,200 lei by 2016 are two of the measures included in the political program for which the Romanian Government will take responsibility - or seek a vote of confidence - before Parliament this week.
'We gradually cut the SSC owed by the employer by 5 percent in the next four years, till 2016. We uphold the equality of chances, also by dropping the salary gaps between women and men in the job market. The program seeks a progressive rise in the minimum salary in the economy by 2016 up to 1,200 lei', the document says.
(1 euro=4.49 lei)
On the other hand, the program seeks to contain the ‘brain drain' and curb poverty for 580,000 persons by 2020; increase the employment rate; introduce the partial unemployment that should allow a person to combine the part-time work incomes with part of the unemployment benefit, for a limited period; and curb illegal work and strengthen the fiscal discipline, while at the same time lowering the administrative barriers and costs for the employer by up to 18 percent, by creating the social security system insurer's card.
Other measures set in the Governing Program include 'the protection of the vulnerable consumer by granting additional benefits for the payment of the energy bill' and 'boosting the public and private investments in high-performing integrated social care system, for protecting the elderly, the disabled, the homeless and the people with no income'.
Gov't political program: Integration of young people into labour market, main objective
The Government plans to improve the labour-market integration of young people through a programme of special assistance of the youths implemented by relevant governmental institutions, starting from graduation until employment, says the political program for which the Executive is to take responsibility before Parliament this week.
According to the chapter on young people and sports, a series of conditions need to be met to ensure lifelong learning among youngsters, maintain knowledge and competencies at a competitive level on the labour market, and to ensure a proper intellectual, cultural and sporting life, by developing and upgrading the network of cultural, artistic and sports institutions in rural and urban areas, as well as decent living conditions, by proving access to a home under the ANL (National Housing Agency) system, if the young person in question does not own other properties, and setting up tax facilities for the youths starting a family.
The program stipulates the implementation of nationwide educational projects devoted to students, stimulating young people in rural areas to attend school, scholarships for pupils and students.
The main directions of action regard the young people's integration into the labour market, starting with job creation by providing employees with tax facilities, to programmes of integration in the society of children benefiting from social assistance, programmes aimed at supporting young people from disadvantaged areas or at providing tax facilities to the young Romanians who work in domains of interest abroad and decide to come back to Romania.
As for homes for young people, the measures include a substantial cut in their prices, through the involvement of local authorities (city hall, county council) and the Government.
Political program: Gov't aims to boost communication with Romanians abroad
The Romanians abroad are an integral part of the Romanian spirituality and for this reason, Romania's Government pledges to boost communication and reinforce partnerships both with the communities of the Romanians, Vlachs and Aromanians from the neighbouring countries and the Balkans, and with the Romanians settling temporarily or for good abroad, says the political program for which the Executive is to take responsibility before Parliament next week.
According to the document, the second target is the active and priority promotion of the objective to turn the area in Romania's proximity, both in Western Balkans and especially in the East, into a democratic region of prosperity and security.
'Within this framework, we shall continue to give priority backing to the Republic of Moldova's aspirations of European integration. At the same time, we shall take action to bolster the bilateral cooperation with the neighbouring states and to actively defend and protect the rights of the people belonging to the communities of Romanian minorities in the countries located in Romania's proximity, in strict accordance with the European standards,' the document says.
According to the programme, the main directions of action are: defending the Romanians' rights and liberties, the affirmation of cultural and linguistic identity, improving communication between the Romanians abroad and their families, and promoting the image and interests of the Romanians abroad.