Radio România Internațional

Tag: Petro Poroshenko

31.03.2019

EU-Kommissar für Klimaschutz und Energie, Miguel Arias Canete, unternimmt am Montag und Dienstag einen offiziellen Besuch in Bukarest. Dies teilte die Vertretung der Europäischen Kommission in Rumanien mit. Am 1. April wird der EU-Beamte an einem Treffen über regionale Zusammenarbeit in Energiebereich in Mittel und Osteuropa teilnehmen. An der Veranstaltung nehmen auch Minister und hochrangige Beamte aus den EU-Mitgliedstaaten und Vertragsparteien der Energiegemeinschaft teil. Am Dienstag wird Miguel Arias Canete am informellen Energierat teilnehmen, an dessen Rande das erste Treffen der Energieminister der EU-Staaten und der östlichen Partnerschaft stattfinden wird, mit den Ziel die regionale Energiezusammenarbeit zu stärken.

Rumänien hat am Sonnabend gemeinsam mit rund 170 anderen Ländern an der Aktion Earth Hour teilgenommen. Damit sollte vor dem Klimawandel und dem Verlust der biologischen Vielfalt gewarnt werden. Zwischen 20.30 und 21.30 Uhr erloschen in mehreren Städten des Landes, darunter auch in der Hauptstadt Bukarest, in einer symbolischen Geste die Lichter, um das Bewusstsein für die Bedeutung des Schutzes unseres Planeten zu schärfen. Au‎ßerdem fanden verschiedene Aktionen, wie Aufführungen und Radrennen statt.

Die Uhren in Rumänien wurden heute Nacht auf Sommerzeit umgestellt. Um 3.00 Uhr Nachts wurden die Uhren um eine Stunde vorgestellt, auf 4.00 Uhr. Damit soll in den Sommermonaten so viel natürliches Licht wie möglich genutzt werden. Die diesjährige Umstellung auf die Sommerzeit könnte eine der letzten sein, da das Europäische Parlament in dieser Woche einen Gesetzentwurf zur Abschaffung der obligatorischen Zeitumstellung in der Europäischen Union ab 2021 verabschiedet hat. Die EU-Mitgliedstaaten entscheiden selbst, ob sie für immer die Standardzeit oder die Sommerzeit beibehalten wollen.

Rumänien nimmt vom 1. bis 5. April an der Hannover Messe teil, einer der grö‎ßten Industrietechnikmessen der Welt. Die Veranstaltung beginnt am Sonntag unter dem Motto Die Zukunft der Industrie“. Insgesamt werden 6.500 Aussteller aus der ganzen Welt erwartet. Das diesjährige Partnerland ist Schweden.

Die arabischen Vertreter, die auf dem Jahrestreffen der Arabischen Liga in Tunis zusammengekommen sind, haben die Entscheidung des amerikanischen Präsidenten, die Souveränität Israels über die Golanhöhen anzuerkennen verurteilt. Federica Mogherini, Hohe Vertreterin der EU für Au‎ßen- und Sicherheitspolitik erklärte auf dem Treffen, die Resolutionen des UN-Sicherheitsrates bezüglich der Golan-Höhen zu ignorieren stelle keine Losung dar. Sie sagte ferner, einzig die Zweistaatenlösung sei eine dauerhafte und realistische. Israel hat die syrischen Golan-Hohen im Jahre 1967 erobert und im Jahre 1981 annektiert. Kürzlich hat US-Präsident DomaldTrump während einer Zeremonie in Washington, an der der auch der israelische Ministerpräsident Benjamin Netanyahu teilgenommen hat, eine Erklärung verabschiedet, in der er die Souveränität Israels über die Golanhöhen anerkennt.

Die Liberale Zuzana Caputova hat den zweiten Wahlgang der Präsidentschaftswahlen am Samstag in der Slowakei gewonnen und ist damit das erste weibliche Staatsoberhaupt des Landes. Die 45-jährige Zuzana Caputova bekam 58 % der Stimmen. Ihr Herausforderer, Maros Sefcovic, ein EU-Kommissar, der von der linksgerichteten Regierungspartei unterstützt wurde, erreichte 41 %. Kurz nach der Bekanntgabe der Ergebnisse rief Zuzana Caputova zur Einheit auf. Sie sagte, das Ergebnis zeigt, dass es möglich ist, den Populismus zu bekämpfen und das Vertrauen der Menschen zu gewinnen, ohne aggressive Sprache und persönliche Angriffe. Ihr Gegner räumte seine Niederlage ein. Ministerpräsident Peter Pellegrini wiederum äu‎ßerte die Hoffnung auf eine positive Zusammenarbeit mit der neuen Präsidentin.

Rund 35,5 Millionen Ukrainer wählen am Sonntag einen neuen Präsidenten. Insgesamt 39 Kandidaten traten an dem Rennen um das höchste Amt in Staat an. Die Zentrale Wahlkommission hatte ursprünglich 44 Kandidaten zugelassen, 5 davon haben ihre Kandidatur inzwischen zurückgezogen. Favoriten sind der Komiker Volodimir Zelenski, der derzeitige Präsident Petro Poroshenko und die ehemalige Premierministerin Yulia Timoshenko. Verschiedene Umfragen zeigen, dass 28,5 % der Ukrainer für Zelenski, 18,8 % für Poroshenko und 13,3 % für Timoschenko stimmen würden. Falls keiner der Kandidaten mehr als 50 % der Stimmen auf sich vereint, findet am 21. April ein zweiter Wahlgang statt.

31 March 2019
Ukraine upon the promulgation of the new Education Law

After the visit paid by Romanian president Klaus Iohannis to Ukraine in March 2015, his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, came to Bucharest a year later. The talks between the two officials have been described as fruitful, against the background of good vicinity issues as well as the constant support Romania has given to this state plagued by a bloody conflict sparked off by the pro-Russia rebels in the country’s east.

The minority issue has not been neglected. Both Romania and Ukraine at that time highlighted the major role the Romanian minority in Ukraine (which accounts for 500 thousand people) and the Ukrainian minority in Romania, were playing in their bilateral relations.

The Ukrainian minority in Romania has benefited from considerable support from the Romanian state amounting to 1.6 million euros per year. President Iohannis has also tackled with his Ukrainian counterpart the need for an improved response from Kiev to the needs and requests of the Romanian minority in Ukraine.

However, these desires are currently a pending issue after on Monday the Kiev leader decided to promulgate the controversial education law. Criticised by the authorities in Romania as well as in other countries, which have ethnic minorities in the ex-soviet republic, the law comes to strengthen tuition in Ukrainian language in high schools and colleges at the expense of the minorities’ languages.

No argument proved good enough to make Poroshenko change his mind and not sign the document endorsed by Verkhovna Rada in early September. Romania’s Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu jointly with his counterparts from Bulgaria, Greece and Hungary have recently sent a letter to the head of the Ukrainian diplomacy, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe and the High OSCE Commissioner for National Minorities in which they have voiced concern about the new law on education and have called for the observance of minorities rights.

The Ombudsman Office in Romania has announced it was notified ex officio in the case of the new law.

Parliament in Romania has unanimously adopted a statement calling for an immediate solution from Kiev, while president Iohannis has cancelled a visit he planned to Kiev in protest against the aforementioned law. Iohannis personally informed his Ukrainian counterpart on the decision when they met at the UN General Assembly.

The Romanian community in Ukraine has described the new law as part of a process of terminating the Romanian schools and the Ukrainization of the ethnic minorities. It is true that tuition in Ukrainian is a major stake in the eastern regions controlled by the pro-Russia separatists but no few are those who believe that the present law could flare up new tensions and instability across the country. Kiev has pledged its attitude towards national minorities will not change, that it will meet its international obligations and be in line with European standards.

26 September 2017
April 12, 2016

UKRAINE – The Parliament of Ukraine, a country neighbouring Romania, will today approve the resignation of PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk and find him a replacement. Yatsenyuk announced his resignation on Sunday, blaming politicians’ failure to enact real changes. His government has been constantly accused, over the past few months, of inaction and corruption. President Petro Poroshenko could now install Volodymyr Groysman, a member of his own party, as the next prime minister. However, the Unian news agency quoted parliament sources as saying that Groysman is said to have turned down the President’s proposal over divergences regarding the Cabinet’s membership.

LEGISLATION – Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has initiated consultations with parliamentary parties on the national security legislation. Iohannis seeks consensum ahead of the public debate on this issue. The Social Democratic Party (PSD), the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) are attending today’s meeting with the head of state. The PSD leader, Liviu Dragnea, has said that his party supports the Romanian state’s investigative capacity but that citizens’ fundamental rights should not be affected. In his turn, the co-president of the National Liberal Party, Alina Gorghiu, believes that improving the national security legislation has become the goal of the entire political class, against the background of the terrorist threat. In his turn, the UDMR leader, Kelemen Hunor, has said he is in favor of a balance to be striken between the need for security and the observance of people’s rights and liberties. The need for the revision of the security legislation has been signalled recently by President Iohannis, who has said that the current legislation no longer reflects the present security context.

ECHR – Romania was sentenced again in the European Court of Human Rights for failing to solve the anti-communist Revolution case. This time, Romania must pay 675 thousand euros to 45 people. Each plaintiff will get 15 thousand euros in damages. In February, the European Court of Human Rights had ruled that the Romanian state must pay 15 thousand euros to each of the 17 plaintiffs. The latter accused the authorities of failure to carry out an efficient investigation into the death of their loved ones and into the ill treatments that they, or people close to them, were subjected to during the December 1989 protests. The Revolution Case was reopened last week in Romania. According to official statistics, over 1,100 people lost their lives and around 3 thousand were injured during the December 1989 Revolution.

PROTESTS— The rally of miners and power industry workers with the Oltenia Energy Compound in southwestern Romania in protest at the lay-off of hundreds of employees continues. Around 60 of them will travel over 300 km to Bucharest, to protest in front of the Government headquarters. Among other things, the unionists demand that a plan be urgently put in place to enhance the efficiency of production units and that salary schemes should be based on performance criteria. Unionists hope that what they call “the rally of despair” will also trigger a revision of the regulations on the domestic energy market.

ELECTIONS – The leadership of the National Liberal Party (PNL), the most important right-of centre party in Romania, is today nominating a new candidate for Bucharest’s mayoralty. The National Liberal Party vice-president and candidate in the race for Bucharest mayor, Ludovic Orban, withdrew his candidacy and renounced his party positions, after being subjected to legal restrictions pending trial in a new corruption case. Anti-corruption prosecutors claim that Orban last month demanded 50,000 euros from a businessman linked with decision-makers in two television stations in exchange for the media advertising of his campaign. Local elections will be held in Romania on June 5th.

DOPING – Romanian athlete Mirela Lavric, aged 25, one of the best sprinters in Romania, tested positive for Meldonium during the World Indoor Championships in Portland, this March, when she won the bronze medal in the 4 x 400m relay race, ProSport online magazine reports. Mirela Lavric is thus the first Romanian athlete tested positive for the same substance as the famous tennis player Maria Sharapova.

12 April 2016
Pro-European parties win Ukrainian elections

Pro-western Ukrainians on Sunday won an important victory for the future of their country, which is still threatened by war and division. President Petro Poroshenko, who called these early parliamentary elections, said that more than three quarters of the people who turned up at the polls have expressed their powerful and irreversible support for Ukraine’s course towards Europe. The government in Kiev thus won a convincing vote of confidence from the people, Poroshenko also said. According to the projected outcome, five pro-western parties won around 70% of the total number of votes cast.

The Poroshenko Bloc, which also includes the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform led by the former boxer Vitali Klitschko, won over 20% of the votes, followed by the People’s Front, led by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and the Samopovich Party, made up of civil society activists and combatants from eastern Ukraine. Both Samopovich and the People’s Front are in favour of a tougher offensive against the pro-Russian separatists in the east.

The Opposition Bloc, which brings together the allies of the former president Viktor Yanukovych, won 8% of the votes, exceeding the 5% required to enter Parliament, unlike the Communist Party, which only won 3%. Other parties in the new Ukrainian Parliament include the Ukrainian Radical Party, the nationalist Svoboda Party and Batkivshchyna, led by the former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Voter turnout stood at almost 40%.

Around 5 million voters of Ukraine’s 36 million were unable to cast their votes in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in March, and in the areas controlled by the separatists, in the east. France Presse news agency notes that the outcome of the vote is the biggest achievement since the country’s independence in 1991 and comes after six months of conflict in the east of the country between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian rebels, in which 3,700 people have been killed so far.

Ukrainian voters stood for a peaceful and political solution to the armed conflict with the pro-Russian rebels in the east, said president Poroshenko on Sunday. He also hailed the decline of the Communist Party, which will no longer be in Parliament for the first time since Ukraine’s independence. Poroshenko now looks forward to the publication of the official results, the creation of a new parliamentary coalition and the formation of a new government, with current Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk likely to stay on, according to commentators.

27 October 2014
Ukraine and Europe

Russia must support the peace plan proposed by Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko for settling the crisis in Ukraine and use its influence over the separatist militias in the southeast of the country, says an EU Council communiqué issued after the foreign ministers’ session on Monday. The document also includes an appeal to Moscow to continue to pull out its troops from the border.

The EU has reiterated its readiness to slap further sanctions on Russia also asking for the release of the OSCE observers who are still in the hands of the separatists. We recall that last week, Poroshenko ordered a ceasefire in the region of Donbass until June 27th.

The move is part of a plan aimed at de-escalating the conflict in southeastern Ukraine, which also comprises peace talks, the creation of a ten-kilometer buffer zone at the Russian-Ukrainian border and a corridor allowing the Russian mercenaries to reenter Russia after they have laid down their weapons. The separatist leaders have agreed to observe the provisional ceasefire. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent in Moscow, a first round of talks brokered by the OSCE has already taken place between Russia and Ukraine ahead of the main negotiations.

The conditions asked by the separatists have included the withdrawal of the Ukrainian paramilitary units, of the National Guard and the regular troops, compensations granted by Kiev to the families of those wounded or killed in action, as well as an amnesty to benefit all the insurgents. They have also called on the Ukrainian president and the representatives of the two self-proclaimed republics to agree on a constitutional act regulating their status. In the separatists’ vision, under the document, the two provinces may get the status of autonomous regions inside a federation or confederation or may enjoy a special status inside Ukraine, a condition vehemently rejected by Kiev so far.

In another move, US president Barack Obama on Monday warned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that he would introduce fresh sanctions against the Russian Federation unless Moscow ended its aggression in Ukraine, mainly providing weapons and support to terrorists.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said, “Poroshenko has presented a strong plan, a very good peace plan. We hope now everybody, including Russia, will work with that”. Nevertheless the British official cautioned that unless Moscow took real measures to support Poroshenko’s plan until Friday, the EU was ready to impose more sanctions on Russia.

24 June 2014
Alemania y el este de Europa

Gracias a su peso demográfico, a la posición geográfica en medio del continente y a la vitalidad económica no afectada por la crisis, Alemania ha destacado en los últimos años como el país europeo más influyente. Sin embargo, también ha despertado sospechas sobre la búsqueda de su propio interés en las relaciones con Rusia. Para las exportaciones, la dinámica economía alemana necesita el amplio mercado ruso y, para la producción, los continuos suministros de gas y petróleo procedentes del este.

El antiguo jefe del Gobierno de Berlín, el socialdemócrata Gerhrad Schroeder ha sido siempre amigo del Kremlin, y el analista británico Tom Gallagher lo considera el canciller alemán más irresponsable después de Adolf Hitler. El gasoducto North Stream, que alimenta a Alemania por el Mar Báltico, rodeando Polonia y los países bálticos, ha aumentado los temores sobre la falta de lealtad de Berlín ante sus colaboradores de la Unión Europea. Sin embargo, la agresión rusa de Ucrania, la anexión de Crimea y la desestabilización de este país han enfriado las relaciones cordiales con Moscú. Además, a pesar de la oposición explícita de Rusia ante la reorientación hacia el oeste de sus antiguas colonias, Alemania ha anunciado que apoya la integración europea de las repúblicas ex soviéticas.

Este miércoles, la canciller cristiano demócrata Angela Merkel se ha reunido en Berlín con los primeros ministros de la República de Moldavia, Iurie Leancă, de Ucrania, Arseni Yatseniuk, y de Georgia, Irakli Garibashvili. Según un informe del Ejecutivo de Chisináu, Merkel ha declarado que los acuerdos de asociación con la Unión Europea que la República de Moldavia y Georgia firmarán el próximo 27 de junio serán el comienzo de una colaboración que fomentará la democracia, el estado de derecho y la economía de mercado.

A su vez, Leancă ha reafirmado la posición firme de Chisináu de elegir la integración europea como expresión del interés vital de la República de Moldavia. En nombre del Gobierno en funciones de Kiev, Yatseniuk ha vuelto a afirmar que su país desea integrarse en la Unión y ha solicitado a la comunidad internacional que reconozca al nuevo presidente ucraniano, Petro Poroshenko, como lo han hecho ya los europeos. Angela Merkel ha subrayado que la Unión Europea no desea competir con la Federación Rusa en el este de Europa. La canciller considera que la solución es que los países ex soviéticos elijan libremente entre el oeste y el este.

29 May 2014
Presidential Elections and the Future of Ukraine

After two months of chaos, Ukraine tried to return, on Sunday, to being a functioning state. Early this year, under the pressure of pro-Western protesters, Viktor Yanukovych left power, leaving bloodshed and confusion behind. In March, the provisional authorities in Kiev were reduced to powerless witnesses of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in the south. In April, Kiev launched what they called an anti-terror operation against the pro-Russian secessionist militants in the east of the country, but according to experts the operation failed to bring the rebel regions back under Kiev’s control.

The presidential election, won by businessman Petro Poroshenko, was a proof that, tired of the uncertainty, Ukrainians needed a leader with broad political legitimacy. They gave the new president more than 55% of their votes in the first round, convinced by his balanced message. Passionate, unpredictable, controversial, his main opponent, the former PM Yulia Tymoshenko, only managed to get little over 10%.

Born in the west of the country, in Bolgrad, and aged 48, Poroshenko is dubbed Ukraine’s “Chocolate King,” and has wealth put at 1.6 billion US dollars. He was a constant supporter of the pro-European path, while also pleading for normal relations with Russia. Asked whether his first visit as Ukraine’s president would be to Brussels or to Moscow, he said it would be to Donbas, the heartland of the secessionist movement. His top priority, as he said, is to end the conflict in the east of the country, where elections were virtually boycotted: in the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, only a handful of polling stations were open.

Nonetheless, according to analysts quoted by Radio Romania’s correspondent in Kiev, the high turnout figures confirm the legitimacy of the election. The dialogue with Russia, the new Ukrainian president said, will have to be mediated by the US and the European Union, and will be based on the idea that Ukraine is free to choose its future. In Moscow, president Vladimir Putin said Russia would recognize the choice of the Ukrainian people, would respect it and would cooperate with the new leaders in Kiev. Although overshadowed by the elections for the European Parliament, the presidential election in Ukraine was hailed by Western European capitals as fair and free from major incidents. “The election was free and fair,” said the president of Romania Traian Basescu as well, congratulating his new Ukrainian counterpart.

26 May 2014