The European Commission is to decide on December 20 whether to apply the safeguard clause on Romania or not. According to the press release by the Romanian government, the Commission decided yesterday to give us one more month to implement the payment system in agriculture. Therefore Romania is to prove by December 16 that it can manage to settle the problem. The European Commission expressed appreciation for Romania's progress with the adjusting of the system to control expenses in agriculture, but the Bucharest government was demanded to improve the electronic system more in order to avoid the 25% cut on European subventions. According to a recent audit by the EU experts, Bucharest authorities have failed to fully revise the electronic system, although some improvement is visible. The European Commission is informed that Romania settled the software for registering the outcome of spontaneous checks, given the independent auditor's conclusion. On the other hand, there have been detected major deficiencies of the software meant to check on the correctness of payments for agriculture employees. (...) Dacian Ciolos, Romania's agriculture minister, claims Romania will manage to settle the difficulties with the payment system in agriculture by the deadline. As for yesterday's decision, he takes it for "an element of trust in Romania's favor". He claims he is confident Romania will meet the requirements so that the safeguard clause won't be applied. (...) (L.M.)