Halfway down the Danube

In other news

Romania's government just collapsed.

Short version: Romania's Constitutional Court rejected a package of laws that the government had passed earlier this year, including a law on judicial reform that is viewed as vital for Romania's accession to the EU at the end of next year.

Prime Minister Tariceanu (who has only been in office for a little over six months, remember) had said that if the Court rejected the law, he'd resign. It wasn't widely expected that this would happen. But it did, and so Tariceanu has resigned. And when a Romanian Prime Minister resigns, he takes his government with him.

What next? Well, President Basescu gets to appoint a new Prime Minister, who in turn can appoint new Ministers. (And he might just appoint all the same people to their jobs, for a minimum of fuss.) But Parliament has to approve his selection. (1) Parliament is on summer holiday now, and (2) Basescu's Liberal-Democrat-Hungarian-Conservative coalition has only a fragile majority, and (3) Basescu might prefer that Parliament reject his nominee, in order to trigger new elections.

More on this as the situation develops.