What the newspapers say: January 14, 2011

Schengen experts discuss on Friday the final report which contains the conclusions of the last evaluation missions in Romania and Bulgaria, one newspaper reads on Friday. Elsewhere in the news, Romania will have to start paying back the IMF starting August 6, 2012. Last but not least, the International Handball Federation announced on Thursday that Romanian Cristina Neagu is one of the best handball players of 2010.

Schengen experts discuss on Friday, the final report, which contains the conclusions of the evaluation visits conducted in Romania and Bulgaria Romania libera reads quoting Romanian news agency Mediafax. On Friday, European experts will discuss the results of the last evaluation visit in Romania in December regarding the implementation of SIS/SIRENE, drawing a line on the progress made and whether the country is ready to join Schengen.

The same themes will be tackled for Bulgaria as well. The meeting will be open by the EU Hungarian Presidency representative and afterwards members of the evaluation group will present, in turn, their conclusions. At the end of debates, they will express their opinions and intentions on the political vote that will be cast for each country.

The last evaluation mission took place on December 6- 10.

Evenimentul zilei quotes Romanian business newspaper Capital reading that Romania will have to start paying back its loan to the IMF starting August 6, 2012. The newspaper reads that before starting to pay up the loan, Romania needs to pay an annual interest rate. For 2011, Romania needs to pay 226.24 SDR.

In 2010, Romania paid its interest worth 135 million SDRs. In 2009, we paid 49 million SDR. For 2012, Romania needs to reimburse a total of 1,584,103,364 SDR, 4,276,736,968 SDR in 2013, 3,648,044,321 SDR in 2014 and 854,883,443 in 2015.

Gandul reads about the decision of the International Handball Federation to name Romanian Cristina Neagu one of the best handball players of 2010, together with Czech player Filip Jicha. Cristina Neagu, a player for Oltchim Ramnicu Valcea and part of the Romanian national team conquered the title with 25% of the expressed votes.

Romanian Handball Federation President Cristian Gatu declared that the award is an honour for Romania and expressed his hope that the distinction will positively influence handball in Romania. On January 9th, Cristian Neagu also received, in Paris, the award for the best young player shortly after Romanian gained the bronze medal at the European Championships in Denmark and Norway.