Radio România Internațional

Tag: Romanian President Klaus Iohannis

  • June 3, 2017 UPDATE

    June 3, 2017 UPDATE


    VISIT – On the 4th of June, Romanias president Klaus Iohannis starts a formal visit to the US. On the 9th, Iohannis will meet President Donald Trump, with whom he will talk about means of strenghening the Strategic Partnership, the bilateral ties between the two countries and Romanias firm commitment to remaining one of the USs most reliable partners. Klaus Iohannis has stated that in Washington he will also meet with Romanians settled in the US, calling it a special moment, as always. On the 5th of June, Romanias president will attend the global forum organized by the prestigious American Jewish Committee, where he will be awarded the highest distinction of the organization.



    UN – On Friday, Romania officially launched the campaign promoting its candidacy for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, in 2020-2021. The event was held at the UN headquarters in New York and enjoyed the participation of a large number of diplomats and UN high-ranking officials. The Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu, who also attended the event, has stated that a new mandate as non-permanent member of the UN Security Council is a strategic commitment and an objective to be pursued by all political parties in Romania. Since its joining the UN in 1995, Romania has had four such mandates.



    TIFF 2017– The 16th Transylvania International Film Festival continues in Cluj-Napoca, north-western Romania. King of the Belgians, a comedy written and directed by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth opened the festival on Friday. 12 films have registered for the official competition, but the festival is hosting 255 films from 53 countries, to be screened until June 11. More than 1200 Romanian and foreign guests are attending the many screenings, concerts, workshops, debates and launches included in the programme of the festival, to which Radio Romania is a media partner. This years special guest is the French actor Alain Delon, on his first visit to Romania.



    DIASPORA – According to the Romanian Minister for Romanians Abroad Andreea Pastarnac, Romania could follow the Spanish model as regards the fight against domestic violence. At the end of a formal visit to Spain, minister Pastarnac stated she had held talks on the issue with representatives of the Spanish Interior Ministry. According to the Radio Romania correspondent in Spain, Andreea Pastarnac has also stated that most Romanians living in Spain have integrated into the labour market, so the rate of unemployment in the community is below the countrys average.



    NOBLE JUMP 2017 – A 50 strong Norwegian contingent has come to Romania to take part in the international exercise Noble Jump 2017, at the Cincu shooting range in Brasov County, central Romania. Also participating are 8 NATO convoys, comprising some 300 military staff and 150 combat vehicles and carriers. In total, 4000 military staff from Romania and another 11 NATO member countries are taking part in the exercise, which is unfolding on Romanian, Greek and Bulgarian soil. This is the largest NATO exercise this year.



    TENNIS – The Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, ranking 4th in the WTA classification, on Saturday defeated the Russian Daria Kasatknina 6-0, 7-5 in the third round of the Roland Garros tournament, with 16 million Euros in prize money. In the second round, Halep clinched a two-set win against Tatjana Maria of Germany. In the womens doubles, the Romanian Irina Begu and her Chinese partner Saisai Zheng defeated the pair made up of Abigal Spears of the US and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia 2-1. In the mens doubles, the Romanian-Dutch pair made up of Horia Tecau and Jean Julien Rojer lost to the Croatian – Spanish pair Ivan Dodig / Marcel Granollers.




  • December 23, 2016

    December 23, 2016


    PM DESIGNATION Romanias President Klaus Iohannis has postponed until after Christmas the designation of a new Prime Minister. He made the announcement after consultations held on Wednesday and Thursday with representatives of the political parties that made it to Parliament following December 11th legislative elections. The coalition made up of the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats has proposed for the office of prime-minister the Social Democrat Sevil Shhaideh, a former Development Minister, and the proposal of the Peoples Movement Party was Eugen Tomac. The National Liberal Party and the Save Romania Union have announced they will stay in the opposition and will not support a government formed around the Social Democratic Party. The Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania has signed a parliamentary collaboration agreement with the majority coalition.



    COMMEMORATION A mass commemorating the martyr heroes of the 1989 anti-Communist revolution in Romania was held in the morning at the Otopeni Airport near Bucharest. 27 years ago, 40 of the 82 soldiers sent to enhance security at the Otopeni airport died, killed by the airport local security, who thought they were terrorists. 8 civilian airport employees, who were on their way to work by bus were also killed in the accidental shooting. The anti-Communist revolt started 27 years ago in Timisoara, western Romania, to then quickly spread all across the country. Over December 23-25, dictators Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were caught, tried and executed. More than 1,000 people died in the revolution, and some 3,400 were wounded. Romania was the only country in the Eastern Bloc where the regime was changed violently and its communist leaders were executed.



    CORRUPTION In Romania, the former Social – Democrat MP Sebastian Ghita, prosecuted for corruption and subject to legal restrictions pending trial, has disappeared and is now wanted by authorities. The Interior Minister Dragos Tudorache has called on the head of the police to carry out an internal investigation into the circumstances under which Ghita disappeared. The former MP, a close collaborator of the former Prime Minister Victor Ponta, is banned from leaving the country and must present himself to the police once a week. He is being prosecuted, among other things, for bribe-giving, influence peddling, money laundering and blackmail.



    SECURITY The Romanian Interior Ministry has announced that some 22,000 police, fire fighters and gendarmes will be mobilised every day across Romania during the Christmas holidays. Also, the border police will operate at full capacity in order to reduce the waiting time for those who travel across the border. In Romanias mountain resorts, some 200 gendarmes will join the existing squads in order to be able to rapidly intervene should the tourists need it, the Interior Ministry has also stated.



    BERLIN ATTACK The suspected perpetrator of the Berlin attack, the 24 year old Tunisian Anis Amri, was shot dead last night by the Milan police, the Italian Interior Ministry has announced. An international warrant had been issued for his arrest. He was fatally shot after firing at police who had stopped his car for a routine identity check. The Tunisian had connections with members of the Islamic State terrorist organisation, which claimed the attack in Berlin. We recall that the perpetrator drove a truck into a packed Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, on Monday, killing 12 people and injuring 48. In another move, on Thursday night, German police officers arrested two men suspected of having planned an attack on a shopping centre in Oberhausen, in the west, one of the largest shopping areas in Germany.



    MOLDOVA The pro-Russia socialist Igor Dodon, the President – Elect of the Republic of Moldova, the former Soviet state with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population, is to be invested today during a solemn Parliament session. Also today, the capital Chisinau is likely to host protest rallies staged in the centre, where Dodon is expected to lay flowers. The new president has announced that his first visit abroad will be to Moscow, where he will try to resume the strategic partnership with the Russian Federation. Domestically, Igor Dodon will oppose the pro-Europe government in Chisianu and will try to dissolve Parliament in order to force early parliamentary elections. During his election campaign, Dodon said that his first decree would annul a law endorsed by parliament, under which the loan granted to the banking system in 2014 as a result of a 1 billion dollars embezzlement was turned into state debt. His announced priorities include banning the organisations that plead for the unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania.




  • Romanian Navy Day and the Black Sea Area

    Romanian Navy Day and the Black Sea Area

    Celebrated for the
    first time on August 15th 1902, Romanian Navy Day was this year
    celebrated, as usual, on the feast day of the Assumption of Mary, the oldest
    celebration of Virgin Mary, the protector of sailors. On the Black Sea Coast,
    in the port-town of Constanta, locals and tourists watched an impressive
    display of sound, colour and light and watched for the first time an ingenious
    choreographic moment, with tugboats performing a harmonized set of maneuvers,
    on a famous waltz performed by the Romanian Navy Music band.




    The events held on
    Romanian Navy Day, with 20 vessels and some 3000 navy staff attending, started
    after president Klaus Iohannis saluted the Guard of Honour on the Navy Command
    plateau. On the occasion, president Iohannis said that the Black Sea bears a
    strategic importance and developments
    in the area have implications with regard to Euro-Atlantic security. Romania,
    which is part of the Black Sea area, is currently a pillar of stability,
    democracy and security, president Iohannis also said.


    Klaus Iohannis: These are real
    advantages and we must have the capacity to use them in order to strengthen our
    position as a NATO member, as a credible strategic partner, especially
    considering the current international background. If we have the necessary
    wisdom, vision and political maturity to build the profile of a strong Romania,
    our country has not only the potential but also all the chances to become a
    relevant player in the region.


    Klaus Iohannis
    also said that, in order to carry out their missions, the Romanian Naval Forces
    needed proper equipment and an enhanced level of interoperability. Attending
    the events held in Constanta, the Defense Minister Mihnea Motoc said that in
    2016, the ministry’s financial efforts would focus on the Romanian Naval Forces.


    Mihnea Motoc: This year, most
    acquisitions will be made for the benefit of the Naval Forces: the modernization of the two T22 frigates,
    the acceptance upon completion of work of two of the three tug-boats built at
    the Damen shipyard. Also, we will focus on acquiring multi-functional corvettes and making investments for the special
    operations forces and EOD divers, who
    are our strategic vectors in the Black Sea.


    The events devoted
    to Romanian Navy Day were also attended by members of the Border Police.





  • November 26, 2015 UPDATE

    November 26, 2015 UPDATE

    Călin Popescu Tăriceanu, the acting president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC) and speaker of the Romanian Senate, on Thursday gave a speech before the organization members in which he said that the strategic binder of their cooperation should remain the Black Sea. Tăriceanu said that, given the current geopolitical and economic context, one should not underestimate the region’s advantages, namely an area measuring 20 million sq. m., a population of more than 350 million inhabitants and its geo-strategic importance. The statement was made in the opening of the 46th meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation. The event brings to Bucharest, until Friday, 76 MPs, representing 12 states in the Black Sea region.




    Moscow will take economic, diplomatic and military measures against Ankara, in retaliation for the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced on Thursday. Turkey said the downed jet had encroached on Turkish air space and was warned repeatedly to change course, while Russian officials said the plane was at no time over Turkey. The crew ejected and one pilot was reportedly shot dead by rebels as he parachuted to the ground. According to Russian media, the surviving pilot said that they did not fly over Turkish air space, and that there were no visual or radio warnings from Turkey. The downing of the jet was one of the most serious publicly acknowledged clashes between a NATO member and Russia for half a century.




    The Romanian Minister of European Funds, Aura Raducu, said on Thursday she wanted Romania’s EU funds absorbtion rate to exceed 70% for the 2007-2013 financial framework. Raducu said that out of the 15 thousand contracts and projects financed from these funds some 55 hundread should be completed by year-end. According to Minister Aura Raducu, 28 billion euros were yearmarked for Romania under the 2007-2013 financial framework.




    The leadership of the Bucharest-Ilfov Inspectorate for Emergency Situations was suspended Wednesday following an internal investigation that revealed that the institution knew about the activities taking place in the Colectiv Bucharest-based club, but did not make any verifications. Also on Wednesday, the General Prosecutor’s Office announced that prosecutors changed the legal qualification in the case of the Colectiv club owners from bodily harm to manslaughter. 60 people have died following the fire of October 30th in the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest. 37 people injured are still in Bucharest hospitals and another 29 in hospitals aboard.




    Romanian President Klaus Iohannis discussed on Thursday with ambassadors of the EU countries in Bucharest, about Romania’s role within the EU, ways to stop migration and the terrorist attacks in Paris. Iohannis said the European states must work together with the transit countries and the countries of origins in order to stop the refugee wave.




    The Moldovan politicians, who have been trying for several weeks to set up a new parliamentary majority, on Wednesday, were urged by Brussels officials to start negotiations unconditionally and reset the governing alliance that should set the priorities for the future government. The priorities should focus on real pro-European reforms. The talks of the Moldovan President, Nicolae Timofti, with parliamentary groups, meant to designate a candidate for the prime minister position, were postponed for Friday. The former executive led by the Liberal Democrat Valeriu Streleţ was dismissed at the end of October through a no-confidence motion tabled by the Socialist and Communist opposition backed by the Democrats, which led to the dismantling of the so-called pro-European alliance made up of the Liberal Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party. The Constitutional Court decided that the Moldovan Parliament should be dissolved unless it manages to validate a new government by the end of January 2016.



    (Translated by: E. Enache)