Radio România Internațional

Tag: Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu

  • July 3, 2023

    July 3, 2023

    Schengen. Spain supports Romanias accession to the Schengen Area, the Spanish Ambassador to Bucharest, José Antonio Hernández Pérez-Solórzano, has stated. At the press conference hosted by the office of the European Commission Representation in Romania , which marked the taking over, by Spain, of the six-month presidency of the EU Council, he stated that the issue of Romanias and Bulgarias accession to Schengen will be put on the agenda of the Justice and Home Affairs Council most likely this fall. “It is a priority of our presidency to include Romania and Bulgaria in the Schengen Area”, added the official. In turn, the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luminita Odobescu, said that the Schengen Area will be stronger when Romania becomes a full member. The European Commission believes that Bucharest has been prepared for several years to join the Schengen area and has met all the requirements, and the European Parliament has given a clear signal of support. MEPs believe that the decision to leave Romania and Bulgaria outside the free movement area is discriminatory, both for the residents of the two countries and for the diaspora.



    Visit. The first visit to the West by the Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu will take place this week to Germany, where he will meet with the Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In addition to the bilateral economic relationship, which the officials in Bucharest call exceptional, the discussions will also focus on the issue of security. Prime Minister Ciolacu will be accompanied on his visit to Berlin by several ministers, including the Minister of Defence, Angel Tâlvăr. Last year, Romania was visited twice by the federal president, Franz Walter Steinmeier and, for the first time, in April, by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Last month, shortly after the investiture, Ciolacu made his first visit abroad to the neighboring Republic of Moldova (ex-Soviet, majority Romanian-speaking), where he reiterated Romanias support for that countrys European path.



    SRI. The head of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), Eduard Hellvig, has announced his resignation today “I believe that since I have achieved my proposed objectives, there is no reason to keep holding this office. We have managed to restructure the institution, promoted a new generation in management positions and made available to society information from the Former Securitate Archives”, Hellvig says in a statement for the press. Eduard Hellvig was appointed Director of the Romanian Intelligence Service in 2015.



    Ship. The training ship “Mircea” of the Romanian Navy left, today, from the Constanţa Military Port (south-east, on the Black Sea) on an international training march. It has on board 67 students from the “Mircea cel Batran” Naval Academy and 12 foreign students from partner academies from Bulgaria, Germany, Poland, Turkey, Latvia, Spain and Italy. The training march will last 28 days, during which the sailing ship will dock in three ports: Piraeus in Greece, Taranto in Italy and Izmir in Turkey. In all these ports, the sailboat will be open for visits. The training ship will return to Constanta on July 31.



    Paris. France had a night of relative calm, without major incidents, after the violence during the week, caused by the death of a teenager shot dead by the police at a traffic control, in the Paris region. Law enforcement maintained a massive presence on the streets, and the young mans relatives publicly spoke out against the looting and destruction triggered by protests and called for an end to the riots. In five nights of protests, the authorities counted 5,000 burned vehicles, almost 1,000 burned or damaged buildings and 250 attacks on police and gendarmerie stations. According to the correspondent of Radio Romania in Paris, the most affected are the public buildings – schools, town halls, offices of some institutions -, which were devastated and set on fire. Over 700 shops and 250 bank agencies were broken into and looted throughout the country. Inspired by the riots in France, more than 100 young people of African descent gathered in the center of the city of Lausanne, in neighboring Switzerland, and attacked several shops, with the intention of robbing them. The police detained seven people, including six minors.



    Tennis. Romanian tennis player Irina Begu, 29th seed, will play her first match at the Wimbledon tournament, the third Grand Slam of the year, against a player from Canada, Rebecca Marino. This will be the first confrontation between Begu (32 years old, 29 WTA) and Marino (32 years old, 83 WTA). Sorana Cîrstea (33 years old, 36 WTA) will take on the German athlete Tatjana Maria (35 years old, 58 WTA), last years semi-finalist in the London tournament. Cîrstea leads 3-1 in direct matches. Ana Bogdan (30 years old, 61 WTA) will have a difficult match in the first round, against the Russian Liudmila Samsonova (24 years old, 15 WTA). Jaqueline Cristian (25 years old, 133 WTA) also entered the main draw, thanks to the protected ranking, and in the first round she will face the Italian Lucia Bronzetti (24 years old, 65 WTA). Canadian player of Romanian origin Bianca Andreescu will play against the Hungarian Anna Bondar in the first round. (MI)


  • June 23, 2023

    June 23, 2023

    Food. The large chain stores in Romania have agreed, in the framework of the dialogue started with the Government, that they could voluntarily reduce the shelf prices of 10 basic food categories. The announcement was made by Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, but the discussions will continue. In order for the reduction to become a reality, either a voluntary agreement of the sellers or an emergency ordinance is being considered, but in both cases, the prime minister assures that the Executive does not want to put pressure on Romanian producers.



    Pensions. The draft law on the abolition of the special pensions of Romanian deputies and senators received, on Thursday, a favorable report in the Committee on the status of parliamentarians. Parliamentary plenum debates on the bill will most likely start on Monday. Former Social Democratic MP Eugen Nicolicea, currently president of the Association of Former Parliamentarians, believes that the law has zero chance of passing the Constitutional Court, like other similar proposals. The president of the Committee on the status of parliamentarians, the Social Democratic deputy Eugen Bejenariu, says, however, that if elements of unconstitutionality are identified, other solutions will be found to reduce or eliminate special pensions. From the opposition, the Save Romania Union strongly supports the elimination of these pensions, as well as all other special pensions paid from the State budget that some professional categories enjoy.



    Gas. The private company OMV Petrom and the national company Romgaz have announced that they will jointly invest 4 billion euros in the Neptun Deep gas field exploitation project, the largest in the Romanian area of ​​the Black Sea. Thanks to this project, Romania would become the largest producer of natural gas in the European Union and secure its energy independence, said Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu. According to him, the Neptun Deep project is the result of a good collaboration between state institutions and the private sector and will make Romania a long-term, predictable and substantial supplier of energy security.



    Ukraine. Romania and the Republic of Moldova condemned the statements of the governor installed by Russia in the occupied Kherson region in southern Ukraine, who threatened that the Russian army could attack a bridge over the Prut River, in response to an alleged Ukrainian attack on one of the bridges connecting the continent and the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea annexed by Moscow. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bucharest has termed as unacceptable such statements addressed to the Republic of Moldova, but which also refer to a part of the territory of Romania, a member of NATO. Chisinau has summoned the Russian ambassador to the Republic of Moldova for explanations and is discussing the possibility of reducing the embassy staff to a presence that would ensure parity with the Moldovan diplomatic staff in Moscow. According to Chisinau, the measure will be taken because of the Russian authorities interference in the countrys internal affairs.



    Immigrants. 43 foreign citizens were caught, this morning, while trying to leave Romania illegally, through the western border. They were hidden in a TIR truck driven by a Romanian, which was transporting parcels on the Romania-Hungary route. Verifications showed that the people hidden among the goods are from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. The foreigners are being investigated for attempted fraudulent crossing of the state border, and the TIR driver for migrant trafficking.



    Theatre. As of today, the city of Sibiu, in central Romania, is hosting the International Theater Festival. The theme chosen for this 30th edition is “Miracle”. The largest annual meeting of the performing arts proposes an agenda with over 800 indoor and outdoor events – theater in any form, dance, circus and music – in which around 5,000 artists and guests from 75 countries will participate. All outdoor performances are free. The festival has also kept the online section. There are 40 shows included in this category, which can be enjoyed by those who cannot make it to Sibiu. The official opening will take place with the show “A cathedral full of organs” from the “Saint Mary” Evangelical Cathedral in Sibiu. The International Theater Festival will end on July 2.



    Football. Romania takes on, on Saturday, in Bucharest, the team of Ukraine, in Group B of the European Under-21 Football Championship, which it hosts together with Georgia. In the same group, Spain will play against Croatia. In the debut matches, the Under-21 national team was beaten 3-0 by Spain, and Ukraine beat Croatia 2-0. The final tournament takes place between June 21 and July 8 and brings together 16 teams, divided into four groups. Two are hosted by Romania, in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca (north-west), and two by Georgia. In Romania, two quarter-finals and a semifinal will take place. The top three finishers qualify for next years Olympic Games in Paris. (MI)


  • June 16, 2023 UPDATE

    June 16, 2023 UPDATE

    Strikes. Unionists of the national airline TAROM have threatened to launch a strike unless they receive a 15% salary raise. The Ministry of Transport has agreed to operate an 8% salary increase, provided this loss-incurring company is restructured. Also, representatives of the Sanitary Solidarity Federation on Thursday staged protest rallies near medical units across the country, calling for salaries and benefits in line with regulations in force and the relaunch of vacancy-filling contests in the healthcare system. Union representatives say that unless their claims are heard and solutions are found, they will be organizing a work-in strike on June 27 and starting July 1 they will go on all-out strike. We recall that the strike action in the public education system was suspended on Monday after the Government pledged its commitment to raise salaries and provide bonuses to employees in the system.



    Education. The Ministers of Education, Labor and Finance will meet, on Tuesday, in Bucharest, with the representatives of the education unions to start discussions on the salary grid in education, which is to be found in the new Salary Law, government sources say. On Friday, the new Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu had a meeting with trade unionists in the field. On Thursday, in the first meeting of the new government, Ciolacu announced the reduction of basic food prices and the decrease of inflation as priorities.



    Agency. The Romanian government adopted, in the first meeting after Thursdays investiture, the emergency ordinance establishing the National Sports Agency. It will be led by a president with the rank of secretary of state and two vice-presidents and will be subordinated to the Government, under the coordination of the prime minister. The decision takes place following the abolition of the Ministry of Sports. The normative act has already been published in the Official Gazette.



    Regulation. Starting this Friday, the daytime running lights is mandatory on all categories of public roads in Romania. Until now, the rule only covered traffic on highways, expressways and European national roads. The measure has been common practice abroad for years. Failure to comply with the obligation is sanctioned with a fine between 60 and 90 euros and with two penalty points.



    Economy. The basis for the construction and operation of an economic model for Romania should be that of the European Union, and the authorities in Bucharest should take measures to balance the internal supply with the internal demand – said the Governor of the Romanian National Bank, Mugur Isărescu. He has called on entrepreneurs, those who support the economy, and researchers in the field to express themselves publicly, in order to contribute to improving the quality of information that circulates in society.



    Visit. The Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, Dorin Recean, is paying a formal visit to Bucharest on Saturday, government sources say. The Moldovan official will meet with his Romanian counterpart, Marcel Ciolacu. The Romanian Prime Minister in turn is expected to pay his first external visit to Germany, where he will hold talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.



    Opera. The Bucharest Opera Festival is taking place in the Romanian capital starting Friday. The first performance in the program is “The Marriage of Figaro”, by Mozart – a premiere of the Bucharest National Opera, made in co-production with the Tel Aviv Opera. During the 9 days of the festival, opera lovers will have the opportunity to see as many reference productions of the opera, ballet, operetta and musical repertoire, staged by some of most important opera theaters in the country and abroad. (MI)