Let there be no illusion about the trauma of Brexit. Anybody who claims that Britain can lightly disengage after 43 years enmeshed in EU affairs is a charlatan, or a dreamer, or has little contact with the realities of global finance and geopolitics.  Stripped of distractions, it comes down to an elemental choice: whether to restore the full self-government of this nation, or to continue living under a higher supranational regime, ruled by a European Council that we do not elect in any meaningful sense, and that the British people can never remove, even when it persists in error.

For some of us - and we do not take our cue from the Leave campaign - it has nothing to do with payments into the EU budget. Whatever the sum, it is economically trivial, worth unfettered access to a giant market.  We are deciding whether to be guided by a Commission with quasi-executive powers that operates more like the priesthood of the 13th Century papacy than a modern civil service; and whether to submit to a European Court (ECJ) that claims sweeping supremacy, with no right of appeal.  It is whether you think the nation states of Europe are the only authentic fora of democracy, be it in this country, or Sweden, or the Netherlands, or France - where Nicholas Sarkozy has launched his presidential bid with an invocation of King Clovis and 1,500 years of Frankish unity.

Vladimir Putin has suggested David Cameron may have called the referendum on the EU “to blackmail Europe” in his first major intervention in the Brexit debate.  Politicians including the foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, have speculated that Putin would relish Brexit as a way of weakening the EU and allowing Russia greater scope to reassert itself. Asked by the Press Association what his views on next Thursday’s vote were, Putin suggested that the prime minister had called the referendum to “scare” Europe.  Speaking in St Petersburg, Putin said: “There is a great problem with Brexit. Why did he initiate this vote in the first place? Why did he do that? So he wanted to blackmail Europe or to scare someone. What was the goal if he was against?”  Putin said he had his own views on Brexit, but he would refrain from expressing them. He said the vote was “none of our business; it is the business of the people of the UK”.

IT viruses dedicated to banking services have been configured to be used on the Romanian banking market, said Cătălin Pătraşcu, the head of the IT Security and Monitoring Service of CERT-RO.

According to him, the Tinba Trojan is a cybernetic threat which lately has started targeting 12 Romanian banks, and Dridex is a Trojan that targets bank customers.  Mr. said: "Initially the news was that computer viruses have appeared that are targeting for the first time Romanian banks and users. This was a false piece of news. In fact, Tinba or Dridex, are very well known malware versions and have not been especially created for Romania. They are very well known versions, which have been configured to work with the financially services in Romania. Most of the time, those who use online banking have an application or a webpage that they use the service through. The virus has simply been taught to recognize the banking page or the application so it can steal your credentials or to make transactions in your name".  Cătălin Pătraşcu also said that a threat that is on the rise is "Ransomware" - the type of malware that encrypts data upon infection and then asks the victims to pay up in order to decrypt it. "At CERT-RO we have encountered cases of public and private persons, citizens who have had this problem", said Mr. Pătraşcu, who stated that a guide has been created to fight this threat. "There is one rule that is as simple as it is effective: don't just click any link you run across", the CERT-RO official said. According to him, at least a quarter of the public IP addresses in Romania have been reported as being involved in at least one security alert. Approximately 80% of the processed alerts refer to systems that display various vulnerabilities. 20% of the alerts refer to various systems that are part of a botnet (a network of infected computers), according to Mr. Pătraşcu. He also mentioned that the number of ".ro" segments or of sites that have been reported as having various problems has increased 60% in 2015 over 2014  "The speed in fixing security vulnerabilities leaves a lot to be desired in Romania. There are still vulnerabilities in the wild that have been found three years ago", Cătălin Pătraşcu said.

     CERT-RO serves the role of preventing and responding to cybernetic security incidents. 

Why is George Soros selling stocks, buying gold and making “a series of big, bearish investments”? If things stay relatively stable like they are right now, these moves will likely cost George Soros a tremendous amount of money. But if a major financial crisis is imminent, he stands to make obscene returns. So does George Soros know something that the rest of us do not? Could it be possible that he has spent too much time reading websites such as The Economic Collapse Blog? What are we to make of all of this?  The recent trading moves that Soros has made are so big and so bearish that they have even gotten the attention of the Wall Street Journal…Worried about the outlook for the global economy and concerned that large market shifts may be at hand, the billionaire hedge-fund founder and philanthropist recently directed a series of big, bearish investments, according to people close to the matter.  Soros Fund Management LLC, which manages $30 billion for Mr. Soros and his family, sold stocks and bought gold and shares of gold miners, anticipating weakness in various markets. Investors often view gold as a haven during times of turmoil. Hmmm – it sounds suspiciously like George Soros and Michael Snyder are on the exact same page as far as what is about to happen to the global economy.  You know that it is very late in the game when that starts happening…One thing that George Soros is particularly concerned about that I haven’t been talking a lot about yet is the upcoming Brexit vote. If the United Kingdom leaves the EU (and hopefully they will), the short-term consequences for the European economy could potentially be absolutely catastrophic…Mr. Soros also argues that there remains a good chance the European Union will collapse under the weight of the migration crisis, continuing challenges in Greece and a potential exit by the United Kingdom from the EU.  “If Britain leaves, it could unleash a general exodus, and the disintegration of the European Union will become practically unavoidable,” he said.

Ten days before the EU referendum in the UK, leaders of the European Council and Commission have suggested Brexit would destroy Western political civilization.  In an interview with Germany's Bild newspaper published on Monday (13 June), the council president Donald Tusk said that a British exit from the EU would have "long term consequences that nobody can foresee".  "Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction not only of the EU but also of the whole Western political civilisation," he said, adding that he was speaking "as an historian".  He said that "all radical anti-Europeans in EU member states would rejoice" and also that "external enemies would drink champagne".  But he said he was sure that the EU would "survive, even if the price would be high".  The civilisational warning is not just Tusk's personal opinion.  A European Commission spokeswoman told press in Brussels on Monday that the commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, and Tusk "meet regularly" and have "discussed the matter several times".  "Therefore president Juncker conveyed exactly the same message in his own words, for example on 12 May in Berlin”, she said.  Speaking at a forum organised by a German radio broadcaster, West Deutscher Rundfunk, Juncker said that a Brexit would create "manifold problems". Asked at that the time if it would be a catastrophe, he answered: "Yes."

Peter Mandelson, the former EU trade commissioner and ex-business secretary, said Schäuble’s comments “finally knocks on the head the leave campaign’s claim that we can leave the EU and still enjoy the benefits of the single market”.  “We cannot leave the club and continue to use its facilities,” the Labour peer said. “Being outside the single market wold be a hammer blow to the UK economy. Our future trade [would] be hit and our manufacturing sector, which relies on the single market’s free movement of goods and people, [would] be at risk. This is the cold reality of Brexit that the British people must face. If we leave we lose the economic gains of being the world’s largest free-trade zone, putting jobs and livelihoods at risk.”  Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, said of Schäuble’s comments: “To quote Mandy Rice-Davis, he would say that, wouldn’t he? … What I call the realpolitik underneath the surface is that they don’t want to get into spats. Of course they don’t. We’re a friend, we cooperate in Nato, the G8 and G20. Mr Schauble’s bound to say what he said. Come on. Don’t tell me that Mr Osborne hasn’t been on that line to him almost permanently for the last few weeks …“You’ll probably get a load of these statements. Every finance minister in Europe is going to line up. They’ve probably got them every day between now and the referendum.”

The leave campaign has said it does not want to be in the single market, because it would not want the UK to have free movement. But its leading advocates, including Boris Johnson and Gove, dismiss the idea that Germany or other EU countries would impose trade tariffs given they sell the UK more in manufactured goods than they buy.

 Having come into effect almost a month ago, the Law of giving in payment continues to produce tensions, controversies, as well as hilarious situations, as officials of respectable institutions continue to contradict over its effects.  After the uncertainty on whether debtors would need to pay taxes on giving away their homes under the giving in payment procedure, contradictory statements over the number of notifications that the customers have sent to banks have appeared. A major blunder, which would be funny if it weren't pathetic, was made yesterday by the National Bank of Romania itself, which distanced itself from the statements made by Eugen Rădulescu, the head of the NBR's Financial Stability department - according to whom about 4,000 notifications have been made so far -, and stated that those were his personal estimates.  In other words, Mr. Rădulescu should be praised for being the only one who succeeded in doing, using his "personal" tools, what banks, notaries and lawyers couldn't - estimate how many giving in payment requests have been made. Congratulations for personally having what to make these measurements with and also congratulations for personally being in charge of making these estimates, because the Central bank doesn't have that in its job description, according to the response it sent us, through the Mass-media Division, the Communication Office. The clarifications made yesterday by the NBR, after the conference in which Eugen Rădulescu spoke, are as follows: "The number of notifications sent to banks by customer based on the Law no. 77/2016 mentioned today, 08.06.2016, by Mr. Eugen Rădulescu represents his personal estimate. That data is not official data from the NBR.  It bears mentioning that according to the law, the NBR is not tasked with processing data about the notifications filed by debtors.  We also mention that the National Bank of Romania doesn't currently hold data concerning the extinguishment of the obligations undertaken through loans as a result of the application of the Law no. 77/2016".  Mr. Florin Dănescu, the executive chairman of the Romania Banking Association (ARB), said: "We do not have, we have not requested or received information about the giving in payment notifications. We have our own concerns. We hope that this law will not embolden far too much those who can pay, but no longer want to. Only the NBR has these statistics, which it monitors, but it is premature to make them public. We are carefully watching the communication of this issue, because we do not want to increase the risk, through our statements".

     The head of the Financial Stability Department of the NBR yesterday said, in a seminar which was held at the Romanian Banking Institute (IBR): "Since 2013 we have reentered a positive trend, both when it comes to real estate assets, as well as net financial assets. I am afraid that 2016 will not continue that trend. I expect that in the second half of the year the value of real estate assets will continue to drop, if we are going to still have the Law of giving in payment in effect. The market will be depressed, it will go into a compression process, which will lead to the drop of the value of all the real estate assets. Not everyone is looking to sell their home right now, except there is a psychological factor that matters and which unfortunately will continue to manifest itself, meaning that we will notice that we are less rich because all the apartments and all of the real estate assets which we have aren't worth what they were. It won't be a significant compression. We anticipate that it will stop between 5-10%, but think that this means quite a lot compared to the total of the real estate assets. So far, the number of those who have asked to hand in the keys to their homes under the Law of giving in payment is about 4,000 people. 4,000 versus 10 million holders of real estate assets. This is the major achievement of this law".  According to Mr. Rădulescu, this legislative initiative will cost all of us dearly: "Someone may win some elections based on these things, assuming by the time the elections come around people don't wake up and realize they stand only to lose from this".

Romania will certainly see its sovereign rating downgraded, if another "wacky thing" like the law of giving in payment shows up, the head of the NBR said, and he went on to say: "A potential cut of the rating will put additional pressure on the borrowing cost. We are currently doing very good in that regard, because we have both a favorable international situation with high liquidity, as well as a favorable position in the eyes of investors, of the Romanian economy. If we get close to the 3% public deficit threshold this year, and we will, then that will mean a warning signal for investors and if measures to reverse that trend aren't taken immediately after the elections, then things may not look good at all. If we pass the 3% level in 2017, then we will do so by a lot, because the refinancing of the foreign debt will cost us a lot". Romania has a BBB-/BBB rating, with a stable outlook, from Fitch, a Baa3 rating (investment grade) from Moody's and a BBB minus with a stable outlook from StandardPoor's. (sourcebursa.ro)