Radio România Internațional

Tag: national defense

  • The new defense draft strategy

    The new defense draft strategy

    On Wednesday, Romanias Supreme Council of National Defense adopted the defense draft strategy for 2020-2024, which will have to be endorsed by parliament. President Klaus Iohannis stated that the strategy was drawn up against the background of the pandemic, which triggered a deep economic crisis and altered power relations.



    According to the head of state, “Romania had to deal with the pandemic within a very tight time-frame, and because of the prospects of a cyclical evolution of the virus, the Romanian state must continue and take the necessary measures, in order to enhance its capacity to manage such a crisis at different levels”.



    Klaus Iohannis has also stated that, for the next four years, the countrys National Defense Strategy will operate with the same concept of extended national security, introduced and defined in the previous document. Besides armed defense, the strategy also addresses other dimensions, such as foreign policy, public order, education, health-care, the economy, the environment, energy and cyber security. The head of state has also said that the document is based on the concept of a country which, through strong democratic institutions, protects and defends all its citizens.



    Klaus Iohannis: “The new strategy provides answers to essential questions regarding our priority national objectives for ensuring the security of Romania and its citizens and shows what we have to do to achieve them. Public policies in the field of national security will be designed and implemented, with the citizen as the final beneficiary, because every Romanian must feel that they live in a safe environment and have confidence that the institutions defend and protect them.”



    The Strategic Partnership with the United States of America, as well as membership of NATO and the European Union are reaffirmed in the document as pillars of the countrys foreign and security policy. The president has said that the National Security Strategy for the next four years entails a new approach, determined by the deteriorating relations between the North Atlantic Alliance and the Russian Federation, the proliferation of terrorism, hybrid and cyber threats.



    During the same meeting, the Supreme Council of National Defense analyzed and approved the Romanian Armed Forces that can be made available for participation in missions and operations abroad next year, as well as the program on the transformation, development and endowment of the Romanian army for the coming years and the future. (M.Ignatescu)


  • June 25, 2018 UPDATE

    June 25, 2018 UPDATE

    PROTEST – Thousands of Romanians have again taken to the street, calling for the resignation of the Government led by Viorica Dancila. They are worried that the current executive, formed by the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, might adopt, under an emergency decree, the changes brought to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, which have been adopted recently. The leader of the Social Democratic Party, Liviu Dragnea, has said the changes will not be adopted by an emergency decree, but he stated his wish that parliamentary procedures be stepped up. These changes are also the object of a no-confidence motion filed by the National Liberal Party. The document was read out in a plenary session of Parliament on Monday and will be voted upon on Wednesday. The right wing opposition blames the Government for having destroyed the economy and the justice system. Also on Monday, the Romanian MPs debated a simple motion filed by the Save Romania Union, which calls for the resignation of the Transport Minister Lucian Sova. He is accused of incompetence and of having blocked funding for the building of motorways in Romania.


    CVM – The European Commission is currently conducting a fresh evaluation under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. For three days, a Commission delegation will analyse the impact of the changes brought to the justice laws and the criminal codes on the Romanian justice system. The Justice Minister Tudorel Toader has stated that a document was drawn up, highlighting the progress made by Romania.



    FOREIGN AFFAIRS – Romania was
    represented on Monday at the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg, in
    the common format of EU     defense and foreign ministers, by the state secretary
    for the     defense policy, planning and international relations, Mircea Duşa. The meeting started with the signing of
    the Declaration of Intention on the PESCO project devoted to cyber     defense, and in
    the first working session the participants assessed the progress made in the
    effort to implement the EU Global Strategy in the field of security and     defense. They have also approved the basic document on military requirements in
    the field of military mobility. Mircea Duşa has
    underlined the importance of the military mobility initiative in the current
    strategic context, in which the response to any security threat resides in fast dispatching forces to the needed location at the right moment. The
    second working session unfolded in the presence of NATO Secretary General,
    Jens Stoltenberg, and     focused on the stage and prospects of the EU-NATO
    process of cooperation. On the sidelines of the meeting, the Romanian state
    secretary has held talks with Frederick Richard Penn Curzon, 7th Earl Howe,
    front bench member of the House of Lords with the British Parliament and Minister of State for     Defense. The two
    officials discussed concrete ways to strengthen the Strategic Partnership
    between Romania and the UK, in the field of security and     defense.



    MIGRATION – The European mini-summit on migration ended on Sunday in Brussels without any concrete measures being adopted. The leaders of the 16 participant countries agreed over the need to curb illegal migration and protect the European frontiers, but there was no consensus as to how that would be achieved. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that, unless solutions were found at the level of the EU, bilateral agreements will be proposed, while the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte proposed the creation of international protection centers in the transit countries and sanctions against the EU countries that do not accept refuges. The Visegrad Group (made up of Hungary, Poland, the Check Republic and Slovakia) boycotted the meeting. New talks will be held at the European Council this week.



    NUCLEAR PHOTONICS – Researchers from across the world are these days in Brasov, in central Romania, attending the International Nuclear Photonics Conference. Romania was chosen to host the second edition of this event, given that it is home to the most powerful laser in the world, which will be rendered operational next year. On Sunday, the participants discussed the applications of this technology, after they had visited the Magurele facility, near Bucharest. The first edition of the Conference was held in California in 2016.



    BACCALAUREATE – The high-school graduation examinations – the Baccalaureate – have started in Romania on Monday. Some 137,000 students are participating, in 440 examination centers across the country. Monday was the day for Romanian language and literature examination. On Tuesday, students belonging to the national ethnic minorities will sit for the examination in their mother tongues, Wednesday is the compulsory specialty examination, and on Thursday students will be tested into a matter of their own choice. For the first time, the oral examinations were taken during the school year. The first results are to be posted on July 4th, and the final ones on July 9th.



    NATIONAL DEFENSE – The meeting of the Supreme Council of National Defense will be held on Wednesday, headed by the President Klaus Iohannis. The meetings agenda includes Romanias objectives for the NATO summit in Brussels next week and the Romanian Armed Forces that can be deployed for missions and operations abroad in 2019. A fresh NATO training mission in Iraq will be officially announced at the summit of the Alliance scheduled for July. Also, NATO wants to set up ground forces command units. Romania has already announced its intention to host such a command unit. Bucharests stand on the relation between the EU and NATO, a topic that will be approached at the summit, must also be established at the meeting of Romanias Supreme Council of National Defense.



    TENNIS – The Romanian tennis player Simona Halep remains no.1 in the world, according to the WTA rankings published on Monday. To Halep, its the 34th week as world leader. Next on the podium there come Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark and Garbine Muguruza of Spain. The top 100 includes another five Romanian tennis players: Mihaela Buzarnescu (28), Irina Begu (33), Sorana Cirstea (47), Monica Niculescu (59) and Ana Bogdan (63).(Translated by M. Ignatescu and D. Vijeu)

  • Army-equipping measures

    Army-equipping measures

    The security challenges in Romania’s proximity call for a new approach to national defence strategies. Early this week, when the 2016 activity report of the Romanian Defence Ministry was made public, the line minister, Gabriel Les, expressed Bucharest’s readiness to face and overcome the complex security developments in the region. Les underlined that after years of under-financing, the Defence Ministry’s budget stands at 2% of the GDP, as of 2017, which allows the experts in the field to reconfigure and modernise the military system, two measures that are much needed given the volatile security situation around the country.



    Attending the same event, Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu said, in turn, that increasing defence spending to 2% of the GDP creates solid grounds for stepping up the process of modernising the Romanian Army. He only requested that the national defence industry be involved in the army equipment programs, given that the Government is determined to maintain defence spending at the same level in the 2018-2020 period, too.



    In turn, state secretary for defence policy and planning with the Defence Ministry, Mircea Dusa, himself a former defence minister, considers that 2017 will be a crucial year for equipping the Romanian Army, considering that it is for the first time in many years that the army’s budget stands at 2% of the GDP. A guest on the “Euroatlantica” show on Radio Romania’s News and Current Affairs Channel, Dusa announced that on Thursday Bucharest hosted a meeting of the Defence Planning Committee, which set the objectives of the Romanian Army’s equipment and modernisation program, on short and medium term, up to 2026. According to him, there are eight major programs which refer, among others, to equipping Romania’s ground, air and naval forces. As regards the ground forces, the Romanian Defence Ministry wants to purchase 8×8 combat vehicles, trucks, multi-role platforms and anti-tank missiles.



    As regards the air forces, Dusa says, the fleet of F-16 fighters should be completed and rendered operational this year, new radars should be purchased for the surveillance of Romania’s airspace, and ground-air missiles should also be bought. Dusa also said the equipment program this year also provides for purchasing corvettes for the Romanian Naval Forces, but the government decree issued last year, which provided for purchasing Dutch ships, will be repealed. He added that a new memorandum is currently being drafted to request Parliament’s approval. The state secretary with the Defence Ministry explained that all investment objectives and purchases of new equipment whose value exceeds 100 million Euros should be approved by Parliament. Mircea Dusa also said four corvettes will be purchased, but he added that it is too early to say who the manufacturer of these warships will be. (Translated by D. Vijeu)

  • The Week in Review December 6-12

    The Week in Review December 6-12

    David Cameron pays a visit to Bucharest


    Bucharest and London boast important bilateral relations and the two sides want to strengthen and develop this partnership, said Romanias President Klaus Iohannis after the talks he held with the visiting British Prime Minister, David Cameron. The Romanian President said the military and security dimension of bilateral cooperation had a major role, in a complex context marked by challenges. The economic side of the relationship between Romania and Great Britain was also tackled during the talks.



    President Iohannis underlined that trade exchanges last year reached the highest level so far. In turn, the British PM Cameron said that Romanians have a valuable contribution to the development of Great Britain in important domain such as finances, science and medicine. However he highlighted what he called the pressure put by the free movement of labour force on the public services in the UK. In turn, the Romanian Prime Minister, Dacian Ciolos, said upon his meeting with his British counterpart, that most Romanians who work in Great Britain are paying their taxes.




    The state and social security budget


    For the new technocratic government in Bucharest led by Dacian Ciolos the state and social security budgets for 2016 are a major challenge. If parliamentary parties have generally agreed with the draft budget, the representatives of civil society expressed their discontent with being consulted rather late. Institutions such as the Fiscal Council also criticized certain infringements of the fiscal rules.



    According to the bill proposed by the Ciolos cabinet, the Education and Healthcare Ministries will receive additional money, alongside the Interior, Defense and European Funds Ministries. Less money will be channeled towards the Labour Ministry. The budget is based on a deficit of 3% of the GDP, the maximum threshold agreed upon with the EU, and on an economic growth rate of 4.1%. The two draft budgets have already been forwarded to Parliament, which, according to the established timetable, is to give its verdict next week.




    Important decisions by the Supreme Council of National Defense


    As many as 1,200 Romanian soldiers and over 1,500 gendarmes will participate in various NATO, EU, the OSCE and UN missions abroad in 2016. The decision was made by Romanias Supreme Defense Council, in a meeting chaired by president Klaus Iohannis and attended, for the first time, by the ministers of the new government. On the occasion, they approved the Guide of the National Strategy for the Countrys Defense for 2015- 2019 and the Intelligence Strategy of the Romanian Intelligence Service, valid for the same period of time. Also, according to the Presidential Administration, the members of the Supreme National Defense Council have ascertained that the line Romanian institutions applied the sanctions set up at international level between October 2014- September 2015.




    The anti-corruption fight continues


    The National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) has registered the highest credibility rate among the population thanks to its relentless fight against corruption of the last years. This week the DNA has opened a new case related to illegal retrocession, a common crime, that brought huge revenues to those involved in the case, among whom two public figures: journalist Dan Andronic, the director of the well known post-Communist daily paper, “Evenimentul Zilei, and the controversial businessman Remus Truica. In the early 2000, the latter was the head of the chancellery of the then PM Adrian Nastase, himself sentenced to prison on corruption charges. Prosecutors accuse the abovementioned of several acts of corruption and of setting up a criminal group to deal in illegal retrocession.



    The estimated damage in this case exceeds 136 million euros. In another DNA case, the High Court of Cassation and Justice has decided this week that the Liberal MPs Ioan Oltean, a veteran of post-Communist politics and Catalin Teodorescu, alongside the former head of the National Authority for the Restitution of Property, Crinuta Dumitrean, should be subject to legal restrictions pending trial. They are being investigated in a case related to illegal compensations worth more than 20 million euros, granted to a businessman by the National Authority for the Restitution of Property.




    Demography on a downward trend


    In 2014, Romanias population dropped under the threshold of 20 million – a level similar to that reported in mid 1960s. According to the National Institute for Statistics, last year Romanias population dropped by 80 thousand people, let alone the 40 thousand citizens who migrated. Such a great number of people is equivalent to the disappearance of two small towns every year. The president of the National Institute for Statistics, Tudorel Andrei, claims that until 2013 the number of population was reduced especially due to migration. In the years to come the main cause of the demographic downward trend is expected to be the low birthrate.


    (Translated by: Lacramioara Simion; Edited by: Diana Vijeu)