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24 I Companies & Markets bne April 2018
and deferred the decision to be taken by a government with political support after the December 2016 elections.
The new committee, formed by representatives of the Romanian Academy, the presidency, government, non- government organisations and local administrations, should ink the calendar by November 15 this year, according to sources. The calendar should be implemented starting January 2019.
Notably, the central bank is not explicitly mentioned among the institutions contributing to the committee. Romania’s monetary authority has avoided playing a focal role in the euro adoption process so far, and it has frequently mentioned the need to meet the real convergence criteria first and in addition to reach a reasonably high average GDP per capita compared to the euro area average.
Romania’s Convergence Programme 2017-2020 completed by the government in May 2017 (the programme is updated every two years) includes no specific target but indicates
a commitment to the adoption of the euro as “an important anchor for the implementation of efficient and coherent budgetary, structural and institutional policies”.
Romania is not the only country among the newer EU mem- ber states from Southeast Europe to dream of adopting the
euro. While their counterparts from the Visegrad region have taken an increasingly combative approach towards Brussels, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania are all looking to take a more central role within the 28-member EU bloc.
Bulgaria, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, announced its intentions to apply to enter the Eurozone’s waiting room, the European Exchange Rate
“Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania are all looking to take a more central role within the 28-member EU bloc”
Mechanism (ERM2), in the first half of 2018, although Euro- pean Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has warned the country does not yet meet the criteria to join the eurozone.
Meanwhile, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic set out his country’s ambitions for euro adoption in 2017, saying that Croatia plans to enter ERM-II before 2020, when the country takes over the presidency of the European Union. However, he declined to announce a target date for adoption of the currency.
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March 2, 2018 www.intellinews.com
Putin promises guns and butter in state of the nation speech
Ben Aris in Berlin
Russian President Vladimir Putin gave one of the most aggressive speeches of his career on March 1, promising the population a lot more “butter” and explicitly targeting the USA with “guns” if Washington continued to bully his country with sanctions and threaten it with missiles.
The speech was widely anticipated as the show-
Slaying of journalist sparks Slovak coalition crisis
bne IntelliNews
Pressure is mounting on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico after the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak, whose posthumously published article alleged mafia infiltration of his government.
Bela Bugar, the head of the junior coalition party Most-Hid, which holds three ministries in
Putin promised to increase the size of the economy by 50% in his next term of office.
case for the likely policies that will dominate
his next six-year presidential term. Russia goes to the polls on March 18 in an election that Putin is expected to win without a significant challenge.
But no-one was expecting the multimedia presen-
See page 2
Interior Minister Robert Kalinak has been attacked for his alleged links
to controversial businessmen.
Fico’s government, called for the resignation of Interior Minister Robert Kalinak, who has been under fire over a separate tax fraud scandal, the Basternak affair. Most-Hid argues only a new interior minister can investigate Kuciak’s
See page 4
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