Official Visit - Basescu’s Lobby in Paris

President Traian Basescu has started a visit to lobby the French authorities to obtain their support in sustaining the adherence calendar.

Two days in France, an opportunity to meet his counterpart at Elysee, Jacques Chirac as well as the leaders of the two Chambers of the French Parliament, a meeting with the observer for Romania in the European Parliament, Pierre Moscovici. This is the Presidential agenda for an official visit in the context of Romania’s adherence to the EU, when our country needs support from Paris firstly by the ratification of the Adherence Treaty. Chirac confirmed it yesterday. "We support Romania’s efforts of fulfilling the engagements it had taken", he said.

The President is optimistic after the discussions with Jacques Chirac: "France remains the same unconditioned supporter of Romania in the process of integration in the EU". Basescu is the first Romanian after-the-revolution President that didn’t book as the place for his first official visit abroad the capital of one of the "Europe’s engines", France.

AXES AND INTERESTS

He is now on a visit that is to improve the relations with Europe, after he was severely criticized for his hurrying to visit London and Washington, shortly after he had become President and especially for his statements regarding the famous "Bucharest-London-Washington axis". This is something the French pres didn’t put aside saying that Traian Basescu was trying to revive the relations with France.

MEDIA

However, his visit is very present in the media in the capital of France and, in the past days, he had been invited to give interviews for TV5, Euronews, Delta RFI, and there were articles about him in the written press, like Le Figaro, Liberation or L’Expres.

In a BBC comment on this visit, which Rador took over, they said that French Parliament Member Jean Pierre Dufau stated that it would be better for Romania to consider a common political project, a strictly European axis Paris-Berlin-Bucharest, beyond President’s Basescu favorite axis - Bucharest - London - Washington". Sources in Bucharest came to support this idea by saying that the President’s visit in Bucharest will signal this change. They added that Bucharest will clearly state that it wouldn’t negotiate its adherence to the EU in 2007, that Romania has to become a member at the set moment and that we know that the integration depends on the goals we have to reach in the country.

ADVANTAGE

Romania, the country that is used to facing reproaches regarding the corruption in particular at most of the meetings with the Occidental officials, has now an ace up its sleeve: the EBRD report on the corruption level. A few days ago, this report said that "the corruption level in Romania is decreasing, the sums paid by the companies for bribery lowered from 2.5% of the annual incomes, in 2002, to approximately 0.7% this year. In the same time, the companies in Bulgaria use more than 1.5% of their annual incomes to obtain certain advantages or to get access to certain services or institutions.

A CIVILIAN, THE CNI CHIEF

Yesterday, on the road to Paris, President Traian Basescu talked about the 42 laws regarding the national security and about naming a chief at the information community. According to the President, the 42 laws will get on the Parliament’s agenda after the winter break, and, now, specialists are analyzing these documents.He also said the new legislation would be more concise. As for the National Information Committee (CNI), Basescu said this department is an analysis structure, but not one to control the secret services and denied the rumors in the press regarding the naming of the state counselor Constantin Degeratu as the CNI president. According to the President, the leader of CNI will not be a person with background in the secret services, but a civilian or a person with academic or political background. Of course, there might be some problems regarding a civilian, who might give up after a certain period in that position as well as in the case of a politician that doesn’t quite like the idea of having an administrative function, that does not guarantee the stability of a parliamentary mandate.