The Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, signed Monday the decree appointing Dragoş Nicolae Pîslaru as labour minister. He was proposed by the PM Dacian Ciolos to replace the outgoing minister Ana Costea. A former advisor on economic issues in the PM’s cabinet, Pîslaru, 40, is a graduate of the international economy department of the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies and holds an MA degree in international relations obtained at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Ana Costea resigned last week following discontent expressed by the trade unions over the draft emergency ordinance on state employees’ salaries. The PM Cioloş announced the government would continue talks with the social partners about the salaries of state employees with a view to drafting a new law. This is the first resignation of a minister from the technocratic government invested in Romania last November.
The Romanian Foreign Minister, Lazăr Comănescu, is today participating in Luxembourg in the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council. High on the agenda of talks will be issues related to migration, the EU regional strategy for Syria and Iraq as well as the threat posed by the Islamic State Jihadist group. Another issue to be approached is the Eastern Partnership. During a joint working dinner, the European foreign and defence ministers will look into a series of aspects related to the crisis in Libya and the EU’s possibilities to take action. The Romanian defence minister, Mihnea Motoc, will also take part in this dinner. He is also attending the meetings of the Steering Board of the European Defence Agency and of the Foreign Affairs Council which will discuss, among other things, the stage of developing the EU’s global strategy, the current stage and the prospects of the EU commitment in Afghanistan.
The Bucharest Court is today discussing the anti-Mafia prosecutors’ request to extend the temporary arrest warrants issued for two Israeli citizens, employed by a security company from Israel, who are accused of harassing the chief prosecutor of the Romanian Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruta Kovesi. Weiner Ron and Geclowicz David were arrested on April 3 for 30 days following a ruling of the Bucharest Court. The two are also accused, among others, of setting up an organized crime group and of illegally accessing an IT system. According to prosecutors, in March they made several threatening phone calls and conducted phishing attacks with a view to obtaining information from the e-mail accounts of the Romanian chief prosecutor’s relatives.
As many as 300 people have died and more than 2,000 have been wounded in the earthquake that shook Ecuador on Saturday. The 7.8 magnitude quake is the most serious one to hit the South American country in the past decades. The town of Pedernales, located very close to the quake epicenter, was totally destroyed. The Ecuadorian Seismology Institute reported more than 130 aftershocks, one of them measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale. The Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has conveyed a message of condolence to his Ecuadorian counterpart, Rafael Correa. Previously, Iohannis also conveyed to his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, a message in which he expressed compassion and solidarity with the people affected by the devastating earthquakes that have shaken Japan over the past days. The sequence of earthquakes that occurred in the southwest of Japan on Thursday killed at least 42 people and wounded over 1,000.
The Romanian women’s artistic gymnastics team failed to qualify to the Rio Olympics at the pre-Olympic tournament hosted by Brazil. On Saturday the men’s team also failed to qualify. This is the first time since 1968 that Romania will not take part in the Olympic Games, a competition where our gymnastics team has won over 60 medals.
(news translated by Lacramioara Simion)