The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania have published a weekly bulletin outling recent activites.  

The European People’s Party is supporting the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania at the upcoming parliamentary elections.

“I wish good luck to the DAHR for the upcoming parliamentary elections. The DAHR is a member of the European People’s Party, representing the central-right school, so as until now, we support it at the parliamentary elections. I ask the Hungarians of Romania to support the DAHR.” – declared Joseph Daul, chairmen of the EPP-ED Group in the European Parliament, after his meeting with the DAHR president, Mr. Markó Béla in Bucharest.

 
At the meeting, where the DAHR parliamentary group also took part, the main points of the agenda where: the directions and opportunities of the DAHR and EPP-ED collaboration, and the upcoming parliamentary elections. “We agreed that related to energy policy, climate change and on the area of food safety, we have to harmonize the preparations very sincerely.” – declared the DAHR president, adding: they stated that the DAHR is expecting a much more determined standpoint from the European Union and the European Parliament related to the European minority policy.

According to Joseph Daul, it is necessary to carry on with the Lisbon Treaty and, despite the fact that Ireland voted against it, it is imperative that all member states adopt the Treaty during the French presidency. He European politician also added: “This would be the real guarantee that we will move in the same direction in the future as well, as a common Europe, as a unified political and economic force.”

Winkler Gyula DAHR representative, MEP in the European Parliament, the initiator of this meeting stated: for the past year, together with his colleague MEP Sógor Csaba, worked in presenting the values of he European People’s Party in Europe and Romania. „I consider that either on regional development, economic area or small and medium enterprises, the central-right values of the EPP are useful for Transylvania: on these we are able to build the sustainable development and modernization of Transylvania, in the next four years.” – declared Winkler Gyula.

The DAHR will present its candidates on the 27th of October

The DAHR will present its candidates for the Senate and the Chamber of Representative on the 27th of October, in Cluj-Napoca, after sending their nominations to the counties electoral authorities. – declared the DAHR president, Mr. Markó Béla, on the occasion of his weekly press conference held in Bucharest.
He also related that on October 11th, the newly elected mayors and local councilors will meet in Bistrita at a national congress on local authorities. The agenda of this conference will be composed by issues like goals and priorities formulated in the Electoral Program, as how to put them into practice. “Results can be achieved only trough a strong representation in the parliament and local administrations.” – pointed the DAHR president.

Also related to the upcoming parliamentary elections the DAHR president mentioned his meeting with Joseph Daul, chairman of the EPP-ED Group in the European Parliament. The party president appraised that the support of the EPP in the parliamentary elections is extremely important, as it was formulated by the chairman. According to the DAHR president, the outcome of the 2009 European parliamentary elections will be mainly influenced by the results of these elections.  Markó Béla consulted the chairman of the strongest parliamentary group also on the issue of the European parliamentary elections of next year, since all member parties will take part of it.

- It is a premier on the area of education, that the Chamber of Representatives accredited the first Hungarian private university, the Partium Christian University. The party president emphasized the extreme satisfaction of the DAHR related to the decision of the Chamber of Representatives especially that the first day of school is the same day as the accreditation.

Also related to the educational system, the DAHR president mentioned the teacher’s salary-raise, adopted by the parliament this week. “A society that wants to build a secure future for its young people needs to deal with the educational system as a priority.” According o his opinion, in the past four years major investments were made in the area of education, but the government was still in depth with the salary-raise of those teachers that are responsible with the forming of the new generations.  He also related that the funds needed to cover the salary-raise of the teachers will reorganize the priorities, this could even influence the budget of other areas, but the settlement of these issues was urgently needed.

The Ministry of Development, Public Works and Housing, as the Managing Authority for REGIO – Regional Operational Program, presented the first annual implementation report for the program, during a national conference held on Tuesday, 30 September 2008.

The event was attended by: the Minister of Development, Public Works and Housing László BORBÉLY, the Head of the European Commission Representation in Romania, Nicolae IDU, the State Secretary within the MDPWH, Anna HORVÁTH, the Director of the Authority for the Coordination of Structural Instruments, Răzvan COTOVELEA and the Director of the Managing Authority of the Regional Operational Program, Gabriel FRIPTU.

"The first implementation year of the Regional Operational Programme was full of challenges and very much work. I want to remind you the basic principles underlying the successful implementation of this program: competitiveness, transparency, partnership and solidarity. I am stressing on solidarity, because the purpose of this program is the balanced development of all regions of the country. The role of the regions is essential to the program implementation and I consider that until the regions have administrative competencies, many problems remain unresolved. And from here we come to another discussion: the medium-term regional development strategy. This is essential for being able to efficiently spend the money. I have the ambition that by the end of my mandate to be able to present Romania’s development strategy. I thank all those who have worked for this good start. But let us not forget that the implementation of an operational program is not measured only in the number of projects, is not visible in the short term but rather in the long term, as an effect on the final beneficiaries. Therefore, the forthcoming years will be decisive," said Minister László BORBÉLY.

The Regional Operational Program was launched on 12 July 2007, the documents related to the project implementation being also finalized this year. At the end of 2007, calls for projects were launched for the areas of intervention on transport infrastructure (on 10 September 2007), investment in equipment for emergency situations (on 31 October 2007) and axis 6 on technical assistance (August 2007).

At this time calls for project submission for all the areas of intervention of the ROP priority axes have been launched, except for priority Axis 1 - Supporting the sustainable development of cities – urban growth poles. "As regards Axis 1, I am very pleased that we succeeded to impose the concept of polycentric development of the program. Thus, in addition to the 7 national growth poles and the 13 urban development poles, a 30% share of the funds for this Axis is available for integrated projects undertaken by small towns, projects that would benefit at least 10,000 inhabitants" minister László BORBÉLY also added.

As regards the stage of submission, assessment, selection and contracting of the financing applications under the ROP, 1112 projects have been submitted within the key areas of intervention by now, of which 733 projects in a total amount of 2.081 billion euros, of which 1.593 billion euros the requested amount, are under various stages of the process of evaluation and contracting. 20 financing contracts have been signed, in a total amount of 175.58 million euros.

So far, the Managing Authority has authorized payments amounting to 2.19 million euros.