Radio România Internațional

Tag: political

May 31, 2023 UPDATE

EDUCATION The government’s new salary offer for teachers will be
presented to unions in an expedited procedure, so as to allow teachers to
decide on whether to continue the strike, the education union leaders announced
at the end of Wednesday’s negotiations. The government proposed a monthly gross
EUR 200 payment to teaching staff and EUR 80 for non-teaching staff in the
sector. An emergency order will also be passed, allowing entry-level teachers
to have a starting salary equal to the national average gross wage. The all-out
strike in Romanian undergraduate education has reached its 10th day.

MOLDOVA The Republic of Moldova Thursday hosts the European
Political Community Summit, attended by 50 heads of state and government. The
European Commission is represented by its president Ursula von der Leyen and
the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. The most important subjects on the
agenda of the summit are security, stability and cooperation in Europe. Also attending will be the
president of Romania, Klaus Iohannis. On
Tuesday, the EU Council decided to double the macro-financial aid for the
Republic of Moldova from EUR 150 to 295 million.

POLICE On Wednesday in Romania prison officers protested salary
levels and the working conditions. Penitentiary police workers say they work
extensive extra hours in order to make up for personnel shortages, and oppose
the planned increase of retirement age in the sector. Trade union
representatives had a meeting with the justice minister, who said the dialogue
was constructive and promised that the rights of prison officers will be
respected. Cătălin Predoiu added that in the following two years at most, up to
2,000 officers will be recruited in order to fill the vacancies in the penitentiary
system.

CHAMPIONSHIP The 2023 World Rescue Championship takes place in
Craiova, southern Romania, between June 1 and 4. This is the largest such event
of the International Canine Federation, with more than 60 search and rescue
dogs taking part, from 10 countries (Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Italy,
Japan, Romania, Slovenia, Ukraine and the Netherlands). The world’s top 19
teams will compete in various sections, including surface search for missing
persons, obedience and dexterity, and search for victims in the rubble.
Craiova is the first city in the world to have organised five World Rescue
Championships (2009, 2016, 2021, 2022, and 2023).

GRAIN EU agriculture ministers meeting in the AGRIFISH council have
not managed to unblock 100 million euros worth of aid for farmers affected by
Ukraine’s export of cheap grain. Romania is one of the five countries that may
benefit from the aid and it stands to receive around EUR 30 million. The
European commissioner for agriculture Ianusz Wojciechowski gave assurances that
the aid will be unblocked and the situation monitored. He said he was not in
favour of using the EU budget to buy Ukrainian grain to be supplied to the
world food programme because the cost would be three times that of the cereals
themselves. He believes the money would be better used, in the long term, to
improve the infrastructure, for example that of Romania, and said he would have
talks in this regard with the European commissioner for transport and
infrastructure Adina Vălean.

TENNIS The only Romanian
athlete left in the Roland Garros competition, Irina Begu, Wednesday defeated
Italy’s Sara Errani, in 2 sets, 6 – 3, 6 – 0. On Tuesday, Sorana Cirstea was
kicked out of the competition by another Italian player, Jasmine Paolini. Also
on Tuesday, the Canadian athlete Bianca Andreescu won against Victoria
Azarenka (Belarus) in 3 sets. (AMP)

31 May 2023
A successful South-American tour

The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, has recently ended his one-week South-American tour with a visit to Argentina. The Romanian official kicked off his tour with a formal visit to Brazil, where he met his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and representatives of the local authorities in Rio de Janeiro. Iohannis next went to Chile, where he held talks with President Gabriel Boric. At the end of his recent tour, in Argentina, the Romanian president took stock of his visits.

Klaus Iohannis: “I had this occasion, after many years since it hadnt happened at the presidency level, to talk to Romanias traditional friends. These contacts are extremely important. Romania is well seen, but my ambition is that my friends understand that we want to really deepen the relationships that we have with these countries. I believe that through this visit I have contributed to an important awareness. Romania exists, it is present and wants to deepen these relations. We were welcomed everywhere and also here in Buenos Aires and on this occasion I want to thank everybody for the way they welcomed and treated us here.”

The visit of the Romanian president in Argentina has been the first at this high level in the past 30 years. In Buenos Aires, the talks Iohannis had with his Argentine counterpart Alberto Fernandez focused on energizing the bilateral political-diplomatic dialogue on themes of mutual interest, such as environmental protection, climate change, education, research and innovation, digitization, agriculture, green and nuclear energy, culture and tourism.

Two memorandums of understanding have been signed on this occasion: one for emergency situations and the other in the field of agricultural research and environmental protection. In Brazil, Klaus Iohannis and his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, endorsed a joint statement on boosting bilateral relations in several areas. Iohannis assured his Brazilian counterpart of Romanias support for the advance of the EU-Brazil agenda. In turn, the Brazilian official said that besides the political and trade relations his country has with Romania, human relations are also important as more than 40 thousand citizens of Romanian descent are presently living in Brazil.

Klaus Iohannis and his Chilean counterpart Gabriel Boric, agreed upon developing cooperation in trade, investment and other major areas. On this occasion, a memorandum of cooperation was signed between the institutions of the two countries, in charge of managing emergency situations. The document focuses on cooperation in the event of earthquakes and wildfires. Klaus Iohannis also announced the first lectureship in Romanian language in Latin America would be set up at the University of Chile by the end of the year.

(bill)

26 April 2023
A Conference on the Future of Europe

This ample exercise of citizen consultations ended up with a report based on 49 proposals including concrete objectives and over 320 measures that citizens believe that the EU institutions must pursue. The proposals reflect the expectations of European citizens on nine topics: a stronger economy, social justice and jobs; Education, culture, youth and sport; Digital transformation; European democracy; Values and rights, rule of law, security; Climate change, environment; Health; the EU in the world; and migration.

Citizens – especially young people – are at the heart of our vision for the future of Europe. They have directly shaped the outcome of the Conference. We are at a defining moment of European integration and no suggestion for change should be off-limits. We should not be afraid to unleash the power of Europe to change people’s lives for the better Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament said in Strasbourg, on May 9th. On that day together with president Macron on behalf of the Council’s Presidency and with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, she received the final report on the conference’s outcome.

Your message has been well received. And now, it is time to deliver. Ursula von der Leyen told the participants. She also pledged new proposals in her state-of-the-union address on September 3rd.

The conference on the future of Europe proved that citizens are asking for more transparency, more inclusion, sustainability and security.

The European citizens want the 27-nation bloc more fair, supportive and to play a leading role in fighting climate change.

Some proposals such as granting the right of legislative initiative to the European Parliament, a fact requested by it, or the extension of the EU’s defence or health powers entails a change in the treaties. And the European Parliament, convened in plenary session in Strasbourg, has already endorsed a resolution calling for the launch of a procedure of revising the EU treaties in order to respond to the requests made during the conference.

During the debates, several MEPs said that citizens need to be more involved with a stronger demographic representation at the Union level. Others have drawn attention to specific areas where citizen-oriented proposals require profound changes, including real European elections as well as new EU competences in fields such as health, energy, migration and defence.

Some speakers have criticized the Conference on the Future of Europe, saying the process is faulty and the proposals do not reflect the public opinion.

French president Emmanuel Macron has also spoken in the plenary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The principle of unanimous vote should be abandoned in some fields or politics, he said adding that there is a need for a reform of the European documents and treaties in order to make them more effective.

Countries that oppose this prospect say that the citizens’ proposals ‘must not be instrumentalized to serve special institutional interests’. ‘We already have a functional Europe’ as the Covid-19 pandemic has proved as well as its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and we must not rush to institutional reforms’ they have cautioned. Romania and eleven other countries have joined a non-paper initiated by Denmark, which doesn’t rule out any options at this stage but also does not support unconsidered and premature attempts to launch a process towards treaty changes, which hasn’t been an objective of the conference in the first place.

President Emmanuel Macron has launched a real challenge before the European Parliament for the entire continent; instead of lowering EU standards for allowing some states to join the union, a European Political Community should be created. This new structure will allow all democratic countries including the UK and Ukraine to share the basic European principles, Macron says

Emmanuel Macron: This issue remains pending – how we should organize Europe from a political point of view which goes beyond the European Union? It is our historic duty to find answers to this question today and create what I would call before you a European Political Community. This new organization will allow the European democratic nations to join our basic values and together find out a new area of cooperation in the fields of politics, security, energy, transports, infrastructure investment and the movement of persons, particularly the young people.

I will always be on the side of those who want to reform the European Union to make it work better, von der Leyen said in Strasbourg at the end of the Conference on the Future of Europe. The point is, you have told us where you want this Europe to go. And it is now up to us to take the most direct way there, either by using the full limits of what we can do within the Treaties, or, yes, by changing the Treaties if need be, von der Leyen said.

(bill)

15 July 2022
June 23, 2022 UPDATE

FUEL
PRICES The ruling coalition has
reached an agreement regarding an offset mechanism for retail fuel prices.
After Thursday’s government meeting, PM Nicolae Ciuca announced that for the next
3 months, starting on the 1st of July, retail fuel prices will be 0.5 leu per
litre lower. Half of the offset package, which amounts to EUR 400 million, will
be covered from the state budget, and the balance by companies operating in
this sector. The mechanism will be regulated under a bill to be passed by the
government next week.

CORRUPTION The Romanian agriculture minister Adrian Chesnoiu announced
stepping down and withdrawing from the Social Democratic Party over a
corruption investigation. He asked the Chamber of Deputies to lift his
parliamentary immunity and claimed he had not committed any offence or act of
corruption. The National Anti-Corruption Directorate had previously requested
the Chamber of Deputies to lift Chesnoiu’s immunity, in order for him to be
prosecuted for abuse of office. Judicial sources told AGERPRES news agency on
Thursday that the investigation concerns the rigging of exams for filling
public positions.

BULGARIA In Bulgaria, the Liberal PM Kiril Petkov’s
cabinet was dismissed through a no-confidence vote, which pushes the country
into a new political crisis, after 3 rounds of elections held last year, AFP
and Reuters report. The coalition, formed in December after controversial
Boiko Borisov’s 10 years in power, broke up in early June over disagreements
concerning public spending and the country’s stand on North Macedonia’s EU
accession negotiations. President Rumen Radev will invite parliamentary parties
to negotiations for forming a new government. If they fail, Bulgaria’s
Parliament will be dismantled and new elections will be held.

MOLDOVA The
state of emergency introduced in the Republic of Moldova on 24th
February, following Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, was extended on Thursday by
another 45 days. The request was tabled to Parliament by PM Natalia Gavriliţa, with
a majority of 59 MPs voting in favour. The Opposition was against the measure,
accusing the government of incompetence, Radio Chişinău reports. According to
Moldova’s PM, the state of emergency had to be extended given the persistent
risks related to Moldova’s energy supplies, border security and the Ukrainian
refugee crisis.

MEDAL The Romanian David Popovici, 17, is the second swimmer in history
to have become world champion in the 200m and 100m freestyle events of the same
edition of a championship. The athlete has broken three world junior records in
the World Aquatics Championships underway in Budapest. Romania has another
representative in the competition, Robert Glinta, who will compete on Friday in
the 50 meter backstroke race. Glinta ended the 100m race on the eighth
position. Another two Romanian athletes, Angelica Muscalu and Constantin
Popovici, will be competing in the dive event of the competition. (AMP)

23 June 2022
Ion Mihalache

Teacher Ion Mihalache, a major Romanian politician before 1945, represented the peasant middle class. He was a man of integrity, defender of conservative Romanian peasant values, but was also a militant for modernization and prosperity for all, especially the most disadvantaged.

Ion Mihalache was born on March 3, 1882, in Topoloveni, a village 90 km northwest of Bucharest. He came from a peasant family, and loved education, so he became a teacher at19 years of age, in 1901. When Romania joined the war, in 1916, he volunteered as an officer commanding a company on the front lines. He took part in the military campaigns in 1916-1917, and was decorated with the Michael the Brave order for his abilities as a commander.

In the tumultuous years after the war, he took part in organizing the referendum by which the Romanian population of Bessarabia voted to unite with Romania in 1918. After the war, he went into politics and was a founder of the National Peasant Party, to defend the interests of the peasantry, the largest social class at that time. The emergence of such a party was also justified by the fact that King Ferdinand I had promised an ample agrarian reform in a famous speech from 1917.

In 1919, in the first elections in Greater Romania, the Peasant Party formed a coalition with the the Romanian National Party of Transylvania, and formed a government led by Alexandru Vaida-Voevod. Mihalache was appointed minister of agriculture and land management. In 1920, the so-called Mihalache Law was passed, granting agriculture schools 100 ha of land each, and horticultural schools 25 ha to help with education.

In 1926, these two agrarian parties joined, and the National Peasant Party was born, the most important opposition party facing off against the National Liberal Party. Mihalache became party deputy chairman, and Iuliu Maniu, the head of the former Transylvanian party, became chairman.

The great electoral success of the new party came that same year, when the National Peasant Party won in a landslide, forming the government. They bring with them a policy of encouraging agriculture, in line with Mihalache’s political thinking. He went on to hold the position of agriculture minister until 1930, becoming then minister of the interior, a post he held until 1933.In 1941, when Romania joined WWII, Mihalache, then 59 years of age, was mobilized to the front line. However, he was recalled back home upon order from General Ion Antonescu.

Our guest today is General Constantin Durican, aide de camp for General Ioanitiu, head of the General Staff of the Romanian army. In 1996, in an interview with Radio Romania’s Center for Oral History, he recalled the episode in which Mihalache was supposed to be convinced that it was in Romania’s best interest to fight on Germany’s side:

Constantin Durican: Mihalache had the Michael the Brave order decoration from the war of 1916-1918. And because he was against Marshal Antonescu and on Maniu’s side, Antonescu order he be mobilized. He gave him a car, to show him why Romania was with the Germans, why we were fighting, and what we were getting ourselves into. Of course, the choice in that situation was pretty difficult, it was very hard to judge the leaders irrespective of their choice.

After the war, he started the most difficult period of his life, which sorely tested his character. In the 1946 elections, in a climate of extreme tensions caused by the communists, Mihalache held a memorable election speech. Former political detainee Ioan Georgescu, spoke in 2000about that speech, which he attended:

Ioan Georgescu: I recall there was a joint meeting of the Peasant Party and the Liberals, led by Dinu Bratianu and Ion Mihalache. They came here, to Campulung, and spoke to a large audience. I was present there. I remember a beautiful comparison he made then. He said: ‘So far we have stood on our right leg (he was talking about Antonescu) and now some are coming to tell us to stand on our left leg. And I say, and I think I’m saying it right, we have to stand on both legs.

Another former political detainee, Cicerone Ionitoiu, talked in 2001 about how he visited Mihalache in 1946, detained by the communist government:

Cicerone Ionitoiu: When we went to him, he was being prosecuted under false chargers, to prevent him from running for office in Muscel. We went there, we were about 12 people, from Bucharest, to support him on the day of the trial. He arrived at night, he received us, it was late, about 11 o’clock at night. He said: ‘Hey, boys, you need your sleep’. We told him that we want to talk to him, that he shouldn’t worry about us. Then a teacher arrived, Bratulescu, who took us in. And Mihalache saw us out of Campulung, and told us ‘Well, you visited me, what would it be like if I didn’t honor you by seeing you out of town?’ That’s the kind of man he was.

In 1947, Mihalache, along with the entire leadership of the National Peasant Party, was sentenced to prison. On February 5, 1963, he passed away in the Ramnicu Sarat prison, just one year before the general amnesty of 1964. (C.C.)

14 February 2022
Ion Mihalache

Teacher Ion Mihalache, a major Romanian politician before 1945, represented the peasant middle class. He was a man of integrity, defender of conservative Romanian peasant values, but was also a militant for modernization and prosperity for all, especially the most disadvantaged.

Ion Mihalache was born on March 3, 1882, in Topoloveni, a village 90 km northwest of Bucharest. He came from a peasant family, and loved education, so he became a teacher at19 years of age, in 1901. When Romania joined the war, in 1916, he volunteered as an officer commanding a company on the front lines. He took part in the military campaigns in 1916-1917, and was decorated with the Michael the Brave order for his abilities as a commander.

In the tumultuous years after the war, he took part in organizing the referendum by which the Romanian population of Bessarabia voted to unite with Romania in 1918. After the war, he went into politics and was a founder of the National Peasant Party, to defend the interests of the peasantry, the largest social class at that time. The emergence of such a party was also justified by the fact that King Ferdinand I had promised an ample agrarian reform in a famous speech from 1917.

In 1919, in the first elections in Greater Romania, the Peasant Party formed a coalition with the the Romanian National Party of Transylvania, and formed a government led by Alexandru Vaida-Voevod. Mihalache was appointed minister of agriculture and land management. In 1920, the so-called Mihalache Law was passed, granting agriculture schools 100 ha of land each, and horticultural schools 25 ha to help with education.

In 1926, these two agrarian parties joined, and the National Peasant Party was born, the most important opposition party facing off against the National Liberal Party. Mihalache became party deputy chairman, and Iuliu Maniu, the head of the former Transylvanian party, became chairman.

The great electoral success of the new party came that same year, when the National Peasant Party won in a landslide, forming the government. They bring with them a policy of encouraging agriculture, in line with Mihalache’s political thinking. He went on to hold the position of agriculture minister until 1930, becoming then minister of the interior, a post he held until 1933.In 1941, when Romania joined WWII, Mihalache, then 59 years of age, was mobilized to the front line. However, he was recalled back home upon order from General Ion Antonescu.

Our guest today is General Constantin Durican, aide de camp for General Ioanitiu, head of the General Staff of the Romanian army. In 1996, in an interview with Radio Romania’s Center for Oral History, he recalled the episode in which Mihalache was supposed to be convinced that it was in Romania’s best interest to fight on Germany’s side:

Constantin Durican: Mihalache had the Michael the Brave order decoration from the war of 1916-1918. And because he was against Marshal Antonescu and on Maniu’s side, Antonescu order he be mobilized. He gave him a car, to show him why Romania was with the Germans, why we were fighting, and what we were getting ourselves into. Of course, the choice in that situation was pretty difficult, it was very hard to judge the leaders irrespective of their choice.

After the war, he started the most difficult period of his life, which sorely tested his character. In the 1946 elections, in a climate of extreme tensions caused by the communists, Mihalache held a memorable election speech. Former political detainee Ioan Georgescu, spoke in 2000about that speech, which he attended:

Ioan Georgescu: I recall there was a joint meeting of the Peasant Party and the Liberals, led by Dinu Bratianu and Ion Mihalache. They came here, to Campulung, and spoke to a large audience. I was present there. I remember a beautiful comparison he made then. He said: ‘So far we have stood on our right leg (he was talking about Antonescu) and now some are coming to tell us to stand on our left leg. And I say, and I think I’m saying it right, we have to stand on both legs.

Another former political detainee, Cicerone Ionitoiu, talked in 2001 about how he visited Mihalache in 1946, detained by the communist government:

Cicerone Ionitoiu: When we went to him, he was being prosecuted under false chargers, to prevent him from running for office in Muscel. We went there, we were about 12 people, from Bucharest, to support him on the day of the trial. He arrived at night, he received us, it was late, about 11 o’clock at night. He said: ‘Hey, boys, you need your sleep’. We told him that we want to talk to him, that he shouldn’t worry about us. Then a teacher arrived, Bratulescu, who took us in. And Mihalache saw us out of Campulung, and told us ‘Well, you visited me, what would it be like if I didn’t honor you by seeing you out of town?’ That’s the kind of man he was.

In 1947, Mihalache, along with the entire leadership of the National Peasant Party, was sentenced to prison. On February 5, 1963, he passed away in the Ramnicu Sarat prison, just one year before the general amnesty of 1964. (C.C.)

14 February 2022
September 7, 2021

CRISIS In Romania, deputy PM Dan Barna and the other USR PLUS ministers resigned on Tuesday from the Liberal Florin Citus coalition cabinet, as they had announced on Monday night. USR PLUS believe the PM dynamited the coalition after unexpectedly dismissing the justice minister Stelian Ion. The party is invited to have talks with president Klaus Iohannis this afternoon, to discuss the governmental crisis. On Friday, USR PLUS and the nationalist party AUR tabled a no-confidence motion against the Citu cabinet. The standing bureaus of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies convene today in a new attempt to agree on a timetable for the motion.

BUDGET In spite of the resignation of the USR PLUS ministers, PM Florin Citu has convened a cabinet meeting today, to discuss a new budget adjustment. The Prime Minister announced last night that the budget adjustment bill would be passed whether or not USR PLUS party pulls out of the government coalition. With todays adjustment, most funds will go to the health ministry, public finances, development and investments. Budget cuts will affect the labour ministry, the Senate and the Court of Accounts.

DIPLOMACY Bucharest is hosting as of today the Annual Meeting of Romanian Diplomats, which brings together the heads of Romanias diplomatic missions and consular offices abroad. The meeting is chaired by the foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu. The main topic of this years meeting is the concept of resilience, which gains importance in the context of the pandemic-related crisis. The Romanian diplomats will also discuss ways to concentrate their efforts on emerging developments like climate change, digital transition, the growing role of new technologies and cyber security. The Romanian diplomacy chief Bogdan Aurescu has talks scheduled today with his Moldovan counterpart, Nicolae Popescu, who is also taking part in the meeting. The bilateral talks focus on strengthening Romanias support for the reforms implemented by the new government in Chişinău and for Moldovas EU accession efforts.

VISIT The president of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, will be on an official visit to Switzerland on Thursday, at the invitation of his counterpart Guy Parmelin. According to the presidency, the visit takes place in the context of this years anniversary of 110 years of diplomatic relations between the two states. The talks will focus on strengthening bilateral cooperation, including economic cooperation, with an emphasis on investments. Switzerland is the 10th-largest foreign investor in Romania.

COVID-19 The number of new Covid-19 infections remains high in Romania, with 1,035 new cases reported on Monday out of around 18,000 tests. The frequency of cases for the past 14 days has reached or gone over 1 per thousand in Bucharest and 4 other counties. Over the past 24 hours, 25 patients died. The number of hospitalised patients is over 3,300, 405 of them in intensive care. Of the patients in hospitals, 107 are under 18, and 5 of them are in ICU. Over 8,000 people have received a vaccine in the last 24 hours, but the total number of fully immunised people is nearly 5.2 million, still less than one-third of the total eligible population.

US OPEN The Romanians Monica Niculescu/Gabriela Ruse qualified in the quarter-finals of the doubles competition at US Open, the last Grand Slam of the year, after defeating Leylah Fernandez (Canada)/Erin Routliff (New Zealand). The Romanians are next to take on Alexa Guarachi (Chile)/ Desirae Krawczyk (USA), who beat Raluca Olaru (Romania)/Nadia Kicenok (Ukraine). In the mens doubles, Horia Tecău (Romania) / Kevin Krawietz (Germany), seed no. 6, are playing today in the quarter-finals against the Americans Steve Johnson/Sam Querrey. (tr. A.M. Popescu)

7 September 2021
Consultations for a new Government

The results of the December 6 general election make it difficult for a new government to be formed quickly. The only landslide win—over two-thirds of the eligible voters, a record for over 3 decades of post-communist democracy—was that of non-voters.

The share of each of the 5 parties that have made it into the new parliament requires complex negotiations if a functioning majority is to be created. After the first talks with political party leaders, president Klaus Iohannis admitted that such a majority has not been reached as yet:

Klaus Iohannis: “This first round of consultations occasioned a good exchange of views between the representatives of these parties and myself, but I can say that the conditions are not yet met for appointing a candidate in a position to form a new government.

The National Liberal Party, the USR PLUS Alliance and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians promise to carry on negotiations. The 3 have a combined 244 seats in Parliament, out of the total 465.

The Liberals (affiliated with the EPP) and USR PLUS (Renew Europe) have come up with separate proposals for a new PM: the incumbent finance minister Florin Câţu, and the former PM Dacian Cioloş, respectively. They also disagree over a new speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, a key element in the constitutional architecture in that it filters around 80% of Romanias proposed legislation.

Here is the Liberal leader, Ludovic Orban, who recently stepped down as PM:

Ludovic Orban: “We will carry on talks and will try to find what brings us together, what can be supported by all the political parties involved in this negotiation, and obviously what we believe is right for Romania.

And the co-president of the USR-PLUS Alliance, Dan Barna:

Dan Barna: “This is a real chance for Romania to have a stable and balanced centre-right majority, with the potential to govern Romania for 4 years and to achieve the reforms that are so important for the country.

A constant presence in Romanias coalition governments, be they right or left of centre, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians, represented by their president Kelemen Hunor, says the only formula able to ensure stability is a coalition with the Liberals and USR PLUS.

For the time being, the relative winner of the vote, the Social Democratic Party, is isolated in the new parliament. Its leader Marcel Ciolacu pleads for a national unity government:

Marcel Ciolacu: “We insisted that Romania is going through a difficult period and we cannot afford a fragile parliamentary majority. A national unity government is the best solution at this time.

A new-comer to parliament, the nationalist AUR party, represented by co-president George Simion, says that all they seek in a broad coalition government would be the education ministry.

In an interview to Radio Romania, political scientist Andrei Ţăranu warns that negotiations must not take too long, because the country needs a government to manage the anti-COVID vaccination campaign and to draft the state budget for next year. (translated by: A.M. Popescu)

15 December 2020
A tribute to Corneliu Coposu

The poems created by Corneliu Coposu in prison and written 17 years later, when he was released from communist prisons, have been brought together in a book launched Monday night in Bucharest, as part of a gala named after the celebrated Romanian politician. The event marked 24 years since the death of this anti-communist dissident, who was the leader of the Romanian Peasants Party until 1947. The President of the Romanian Association of Former Political Prisoners Octav Bjoza, spoke about Corneliu Coposus moral uprightness and about the role model he was for the Romanian society:

Octav Bjoza: “It was very difficult to get close to him, but 2 or 3 times I had the chance to talk to him briefly. The last time was 4 or 5 months before he left for the last surgery in Germany. Do you know what he told me? Mr Bjoza, he said, I would like to see the members of Parliament battling for their strategies and programmes, and even ideologies, but after they leave Parliament I would like to see them together, going out to a concert, a play, a beer, or a football match. But these people… they hate each others guts, Mr Bjoza. Im sorry, but I find this unacceptable.

Corneliu Coposu served time in the most terrible communist prisons: in Vacaresti, Jilava, Pitesti, Malmaison, Craiova, Aiud, Poarta Alba, the Danube-Black Sea Canal, in Gherla and Sighetul Marmatiei, and he was detained in harsh solitary confinement in Ramnicu Sarat between 1954 and 1962. During the 8 years spent alone in a cell, he spent his time praying, doing maths and writing poems, so as not to lose his mind.

In spite of terrible hardships, Corneliu Coposu never renounced his principles and constantly struggled to turn Romania from a Soviet satellite into a Western democracy. Born in 1914, the great politician was trained under another noteworthy statesman, the former prime minister Iuliu Maniu, whose political secretary Coposu was. He was involved in organising the anti-communist opposition at the end of World War II, and organised student protests against the communists.

In 1947 Coposu was arrested and detained without a trial. When released, the communist regime asked him to collaborate in exchange for clearing his name, but Coposu turned down the offer. He re-established the National Peasants Party as a clandestine group and in 1987 he had it affiliated to the Christian Democrat International.

After the fall of communism in 1989, he brought together the opposition groups of the time into what was known as the Democratic Convention. He died in 1995, a year before the Convention won the local, parliamentary and presidential elections in Romania. Of Coposus 3 key goals, namely Romanias joining the European Union, NATO and the restoration of the monarchy, only the latter was not achieved.

(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

12 November 2019
June 13, 2019 UPDATE

AGREEMENT A National Political Agreement aimed at consolidating Romanias European path was signed in a public ceremony in Bucharest on Thursday. In his address on this occasion, president Klaus Iohannis once again criticised the Social Democratic Party, which, he said, harmed Romania a lot. It is because of the Social Democrats that Romania has been unable to develop more, Iohannis said, and emphasised that the Constitution and related legislation must be amended. Attending the ceremony were the leaders of the National Liberal Party, Save Romania Union, ProRomania and Peoples Movement Party, all of them in opposition. The Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, in power, as well as the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians, were not on the list of signatories. The Agreement was proposed by Klaus Iohannis to all the parliamentary parties that took part last week in consultations on means to implement the outcome of the May 26th justice referendum. At that time the head of state explained that the agreement is designed to help introduce legislation prohibiting amnesty and pardon for corruption offences and prohibiting the passing of emergency government orders in the field of the judiciary.

CONGRESS The Social Democratic Party, in power in Romania, will elect its new leaders in a special congress on June 29th, with the partys presidential candidate to be chosen in another congress. These are the main decisions made by the Social Democrats Executive Committee on Thursday. On June 29th the Social Democrats are to elect their president, executive president and secretary general. Following a change in the party rules, the president will be elected by delegates appointed by local branches, rather than by all party members as it happened so far. PM Viorica Dancila, who is currently the interim president, has already announced her candidacy.

COMMEMORATION Romania commemorated on Thursday 29 years since the June 1990 miners raids that ended a large-scale protest against the leftist party that took over power after the fall of the communist dictatorship in December 1989. On June 13, 1990, clashes broke out between the protesters in University Square in Bucharest and the police. The next day, coal miners from the Jiu Valley in western Romania arrived in Bucharest and raided opposition party offices, the University and other buildings, attacking protesters and other civilians. Six people died, nearly 1,000 were wounded and several hundred others arrested illegally. A criminal case in which the then president Ion Iliescu, ex-PM Petre Roman, former Deputy PM Gelu Voican Voiculescu and former intelligence chief Virgil Măgureanu are accused of crimes against humanity, is yet to reach the actual trial stage. In 2014, the European Court for Human Rights issued a decision forcing Romania to carry on investigations in this case.

UK Boris Johnson, who promised to complete Brexit on October 31st, is in the lead in the Tory leadership race, after getting 114 out of 313 votes on Thursday. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt came second with 43 votes, followed by Environment Secretary Michael Gove with 37 and Home Secretary Sajid Javid with 23. Ten candidates were enrolled in the race to replace Theresa May, who stepped down as Prime Minister on June 7. The second round of voting is scheduled on June 17th.

(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

13 June 2019