Radio România Internațional

Tag: Breeze 16

  • July 9, 2016

    July 9, 2016

    NATO SUMMIT — The NATO leaders, gathered in Warsaw, decided to further provide assistance to Afghanistan, in spite of the initial decision by several member states to shorten their presence in that country, this year. According to NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, the North Atlantic Alliance will continue to train Afghan forces and to provide financial assistance to Afghanistan, by 2020. The NATO leaders will also discuss today, on the last day of the summit, cooperation with Ukraine, after on Friday, the German Chancellor and the French President analysed, with Vladimir Putin, the situation in eastern Ukraine, which runs the risk of escalating, after a spike in ceasefire violations. Also on Friday, NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, announced the deployment to the Baltic States and to Poland of four multinational battalions and the setting up of a NATO multinational brigade in Romania. A NATO-EU joint declaration on cooperation in such domains as cyber crime and migration has been signed on the sidelines of the summit. Romania is represented at the Warsaw Summit by President Klaus Iohannis.



    BREXIT EFFECTS — Romanian PM Dacian Ciolos has held talks with several Romanian MEPs on the impact of the Brexit vote, on Romania, the EU member states and the future of the European Union. According to a communiqué issued by the Romanian Government, the prime minister said one of Romania’s top priorities, during the forth-coming negotiations, is to make sure the Romanian citizens’ rights are non-discriminatorily observed. Ciolos also underlined how important it is for Romania to pay an active role in re-launching the European project and to show it further embraces and sticks to the fundamental values and principles of the European Union, pleading for a stronger, more inclusive and integrated Union. The focal points of the talks also included the functioning of the Schengen area, external border security, the migration and asylum policy, the visas for Canada, the Republic of Moldova and the relation with the EU, the Juncker Plan, as well as revising the Multi-annual Financial Framework Post 2020.



    VISAS— The Head of the Chancellery of the Romanian PM, Dragos Tudorache, will discuss in Brussels on Monday with Canadian immigration minister, John McCallum, as well as with representatives of the European Commission and of Bulgaria, issues related to the lifting by Canada of travel visas for Romanian citizens. Romanian PM, Dacian Ciolos, has said earlier this week that progress has been made in the visa exemption file, also adding that in the absence of a political decision on the issue in Ottawa, Romania, as a EU member state, might, just like Bulgaria, not ratify the EU-Canada Commercial Agreement. In April, Canada and the US received an additional three-month deadline on the visa regime reciprocity, which stipulates that the countries whose citizens do not need mandatory visas should, in their turn, allow the free movement of all EU citizens. Canada now requires mandatory visas for Romanian and Bulgarian citizens, whereas the US imposes visas on five EU member states, Romania included.



    DRILLS – Three Romanian military ships will participate in the multinational exercise BREEZE 16, over July 11- 17. The drills will unfold in Bulgaria’s territorial waters and in the Black Sea international waters. Romania’s ships are Frigate “Regina Maria”, with 240 marines on board, the sea minesweeper “Sublocotenent Alexandru AXENTE” and the “Lastun” Missile Carrier, with 60 military on board. The Romanian military ships are part of the forces and equipment made available by Romania to the North Atlantic Alliance, and the participation of the Romanian military in NATO exercises is meant to strengthen the interoperability of the ships’ crews with similar partner military structures.


    (Translated by D. Vijeu)

  • July 8, 2016

    July 8, 2016

    Romania will plead at the NATO summit starting today in Warsaw for NATO’s increased attention to the Black Sea area and for ensuring a balanced allied military presence on the entire eastern flank. The Romanian President Klaus Iohannis will also point to the importance of fully complying with the commitments made at the previous summit held in Great Britain. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent, the allies will make important decisions regarding the security of the Alliance and will decide on the deployment of 4 battalions in the northern part of the eastern flank and of a multinational brigade in Romania. NATO will also take additional measures for cyber security, civilian training and defense against ballistic missiles coming from outside the Euro-Atlantic area. At the summit, a common NATO-EU declaration will be signed that will contribute to the structuring of the strategic partnership between the two organizations.



    The latest data on migration within the European Union are being presented Friday in Brussels. The data were collected and included in a report of the European Asylum Support Office, an agency of the EU that has been operational since 2011. According to the report, most of the asylum seekers are people from Syria, the Western Balkan countries and Afghanistan. The main countries that received applications for international protection were Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Austria and Italy. Other issues in the report refer to the relocation program, which supports Italy and Greece in the first place. The report includes data which shows that the number of applications for unaccompanied minors increased 4 times as well as data on the operational support granted to Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Cyprus.



    Three Romanian military ships are taking part in the BREEZE 16 multinational drill, unfolding between July 11- 17 in Bulgaria’s territorial waters and in the Black Sea international waters, the Romanian Navy Chief of Staff announced. The ships are “Queen Marie” frigate with a 240-strong military crew, “Sub-Lieutenant Alexandru AXENTE” Maritime Dragon, a ship fighting sea mines and the “Lastun” missile carrier ship with a 60-strong military crew. The Romanian military ships are part of the joint forces made available to NATO by Romania, and the participation of the Romanian marines in the NATO drills contribute to the consolidation of interoperability between ship crews and the partners’ similar military structures.



    In Romania, more than 3 million employees (65% of the total of 4.7 million) have monthly salaries below 440 euros, which means their salaries are below the current level of the average salary, show data centralized by the Ziarul Financiar daily. As many as 1.3 million employees (27% of the total number of employees) have wages ranging from 443 to 885 euros per month. Only 7% of the local employees have monthly wages of more than 885 euros. They work as experts in such fields as banking, IT, air transport, oil extraction and the tobacco industry. The net average salary in Romania reached 456 euros this May, which is 14% more than in the same month of 2015, show data published in Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics. A Romanian employee earns 5 times less, on an average, than an EU employee.



    Five Dallas police officers have been killed and several wounded by gunmen during protests against the recent shooting of two black men by police in the states of Minnesota (North) and Louisiana (South). The victims did not oppose resistance in either of the cases. Both incidents were followed by protests of the black community and by explanations provided by the law enforcement authorities, which however did not persuade the public opinion. President Barack Obama had previously said that internal bias had to be rooted out from the justice system.


    (news translated by Lacramioara Simion)