Radio România Internațional

Tag: entry

  • February 3, 2024

    February 3, 2024

    AGREEMENT The PM
    of Romania Marcel Ciolacu and the representatives of farmers and carriers
    Friday reached an agreement ending the recent protests. On Monday, the PM’s
    office will set up an inter-ministry committee tasked with identifying the best
    solutions for the protesters’ demands. Farmers and carriers in Romania
    protested for 3 weeks against high business costs, low prices for produce, the
    import of cheap foodstuffs from Ukraine and the constraints introduced by the
    EU as part of its climate change action.


    COMMEMORATION A
    ceremony commemorating the prominent politician Iuliu Maniu, a former prime
    minister of Romania and leader of the National Christian-Democratic Party, was
    held on Saturday at the Memorial for the victims of communism in Sighetu
    Marmaţiei (north-west). Maniu died on the night of February 4 1953, in the political
    prison in Sighet, where he was serving a life sentence for high treason
    pronounced by the communist regime. His name was cleared under a Supreme Court
    ruling in 1998, and a monument was erected in his honour in the Revolution
    Square in Bucharest.


    MOLDOVA Chişinău
    extended an entry ban against the leader of the Romanian nationalist party AUR,
    George Simion, by another 5 years. Under Moldova’s legislation, foreigners may
    be declared undesirables if they have or if there are strong reasons to believe
    they intend to conduct activities likely to endanger the country’s national
    security or public order. According to the R. of Moldova, the Romanian
    authorities have been notified in this respect, and George Simion challenged
    the decision in court. The AUR leader was expelled from Moldova in 2018, with
    an entry ban in place for a period of 5 years.


    MIDDLE EAST The
    US conducted scores of air raids against targets operated by Iran-controlled
    groups in Iraq and Syria. The Pentagon said the raids were a response to the recent
    drone attack by Iran-supported fighters, which killed 3 US troops at a military
    base in Jordan, the BBC reports. Taking part in Friday’s raids were B1
    long-range bombers, flying out of the US. Iran condemned the strikes, claiming
    they violated the sovereignty of Syria and Iraq, AFP reports. In Bagdad, a
    government spokesman announced the US strikes in western Iraq killed at least
    16 people, including civilians. Meanwhile, the US state secretary Antony
    Blinken will travel to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank
    between February 4-8, primarily to reach a deal securing the freeing of all the
    Israeli hostages kept in Gaza following the Hamas terror attack of October 7.


    TENNIS The
    Romanian player Marius Copil takes on Stefanos Tsitsipas, no. 10 in the world,
    in Athens today, in the first match between Romania and Greece in the playoffs
    for the Davis Cup World Group I. The second singles match will be pitting Nicholas
    David Ionel against Aristotelis Thanos. The doubles match and 2 other singles
    games are scheduled for Sunday. Romania and Greece played twice against each
    other in the Davis Cup before, with one win each. Previously in this year’s competition,
    in the first round of the World Group I, Romania lost to Taiwan and Greece was
    defeated by Slovakia. (AMP)

  • From Schengen to CVM

    From Schengen to CVM

    Romania
    could soon get the green light for its long awaited accession to Schengen. The
    issue of Romania and Bulgaria’s accession to Europe’s border-free area could be
    included on the agenda of the Justice and Home Affairs Council over 8-9
    December. The final decision on the enlargement is to be made by the EU
    members, which are part of the Schengen zone, and only the Netherlands, which
    has constantly opposed Romania’s accession, has again proved reluctant.




    Authorities
    in the Hague say that in principle they do not oppose Romania’s accession, but
    the Dutch Parliament has recently recommended that no irreversible decision be
    made without additional verifications. A voluntary assessment mission has this
    month come to Romania and Bulgaria and experts of the European Commission and
    the member states have submitted their report to the working group for Schengen.




    The
    Netherlands didn’t send its experts with the mission, which according to
    Romania’s Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca, has ended with conclusions as positive
    as possible. Ciuca says he hasn’t read the report, which hasn’t been published
    yet, but got the good news from the Romanian representatives who participated
    in its analysis. The report ‘confirms Romania’s preparation for the Schengen
    acquis and brings us closer to reaching this country objective’, Prime Minister
    Ciuca says.


    Accompanied
    by the Interior and Justice Ministers, the head of the Romanian executive has
    this week flown to Brussels, where he got assurances that Romania benefits from
    full support for its accession to Schngen. All the European officials, Ciuca
    talked to during his two-day visit, say the same thing.


    Nicolae Ciucă: We
    have proved that we can protect the EU’s external borders. We did that even
    before the beginning of the conflict and focused even more on the issue after
    its commencement. And the pressure on the border personnel was as complex and
    dynamic as it could possibly be.




    Romania’s
    results have been appreciated in Brussels and that is also visible in the
    non-legislative resolution recently passed by the European Parliament with a
    landslide majority, which calls on the EU Council to take all the necessary
    measures to endorse a decision by the end of the year on Romania and Bulgaria’s
    entry into Schengen. We have also received positive signals regarding the
    lifting of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) and the Prime Minister
    has mentioned the talks he had in this respect with the president of the
    European Commission Ursula von der Leyen while the Justice Minister Catalin
    Predoiu held applied technical talks with other European officials.




    The
    Prime Minister has mentioned the stage in the process of endorsing the new
    justice laws, underlining that the progress in the past months may serve as a
    good basis for a positive CVM report from the European Commission. During his
    visit to Brussels Ciuca told the Romanian MEPs that joint action is needed
    concerning both the country’s accession to Schengen and having the Cooperation
    and Verification Mechanism lifted.


    (bill)