Romania’s national football team has grabbed a 3-0 win in the EURO 2024 opener on Football Arena in Munich on Monday. The goals were scored by Nicolae Stanciu, Răzvan Marin and Denis Drăguş.
The national team will play Belgium on June 22 in Köln and Slovakia on June 26 in Frankfurt.
The European Football Championship kicks off in Germany. Until July 14, Europe’s top teams will be competing for the European title. EURO 2024 brings together 24 teams in six groups of four teams each, including Romania, which was drawn in Group E, alongside Belgium, Ukraine and Slovakia. Romania will debut against Ukraine, and then it will play Belgium and Slovakia. The early objective is to move past the group phase in this edition of the European Championship. Romania’s team is rated at 91 mln EUR on the transfer market, the lowest among participating teams. Albania has a more valuable team, valued at 139 mln EUR, while Romania’s opponent, Slovakia, is worth 161 mln EUR. Belgium is rated at 669 mln EUR, while Ukraine at 534 mln EUR. The absolute leader in the standings is England (1.69 bln EUR), followed by France (1.41 bln EUR) and Portugal (1.22 bln EUR).
This is the 6th time Romania is taking part in the European Championship, after 1984, 1996, 2000, 2008 and 2016. Romania will be represented at EURO 2024 by a brigade of referees, consisting of Istvan Kovacs (center), Vasile Marinescu, Ovidiu Artene (sideline) and Cătălin Popa (VAR). Each team will play three group matches, playing each opponent in the group once. The top two teams in each group advance to the round of 16, along with the best four teams in third place. In the event of a tie between at least two teams from the same group, the tiebreaker will consist in the number of points, goal average and the number of goals scored in direct matches. In terms of prizes, UEFA will award 331 million EUR to the 24 participants, the same as for the 2020 edition, the lowest standing at 9.2 mln EUR for securing qualification to the group phase. In addition, each win in the group phase will be rewarded with 1 mln EUR, and each draw with 500,000 EUR. Qualifying to the round of 16 brings a bonus of 1.5 mln EUR, while securing presence in the quarter-finals another 2.5 mln EUR. The semi-finalists will receive another 4 mln EUR. The runner-up in the final receives 5 mln EUR, and the champion will be rewarded with 8 mln EUR. So, the team that wins the European title this year will also win a lot of money.
Spain is the only one that defended its title (2008 and 2012). The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), victorious in 1972, failed to defend its title in 1976, losing the final to Czechoslovakia (2-2, 5-3 at the penalty shootout). Germany is targeting a fourth European title (after the ones won in 1972, 1980 and 1996), which would mark a new record. Italy, the 2021 champions, will try to become the second nation to retain their continental trophy. The Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo is the best scorer in the history of the European Championship, with 14 goals scored since 2004, ahead of Michel Platini of France with 9 goals. (VP)
The headcoach of
Romania’s national team, Mirel Rădoi, has called up 26 players for the matches
Romania will play against Iceland and Liechtenstein in Group J as part of the
2022 World Cup preliminaries. A surprise presence is that of 15-year-old Enes
Sali, who is the youngest scorer in the history of the Romanian First League. Unavailable
for the match against Iceland after being banned for repeated yellow bookings,
striker Valentin Mihăilă was left out.
Thus Romania’s
team includes goalkeeper Florin Niţă, defenders Vlad Chiricheş, Andrei Burcă,
Nicuşor Bancu, midfielders Răzvan Marin, Alexandru Cicâldău, Nicolae Stanciu,
Ianis Hagi and strikers George Puşcaş and Andrei Ivan. Of the 26 players
called up to the squad, 11 are competing in the domestic championship, while 15
are playing for foreign clubs, 4 in Italy and Turkey each, 2 in the Czech
Republic and one each in Germany, England, Spain, Hungary and Scotland.
Iceland’s
headcoach, Arnar Vidarsson, also presented his squad ahead of the matches his
team will play against Romania and North Macedonia. Runar Mar Sigurjonsson,
currently enrolled at CFR Cluj, was not selected.
The match will
be held on Steaua Bucharest stadium on Thursday. The six referees are from
Russia.
In Group J,
Germany has already secured qualification to the World Cup, where the winners
of each preliminary group can qualify. The ten teams in second position and the
best-ranked two teams in Nations League, other than those in second position in
the preliminaries, will play playoff matches to secure qualification.
Germany
currently tops the league tables with 21 points, followed by Romania with 13 points, North Macedonia and Armenia each with 12 points, Iceland with 8 points
and Liechtenstein with 1 point. (VP)
The headcoach of
Romania’s national team, Mirel Rădoi, has called up 26 players for the matches
Romania will play against Iceland and Liechtenstein in Group J as part of the
2022 World Cup preliminaries. A surprise presence is that of 15-year-old Enes
Sali, who is the youngest scorer in the history of the Romanian First League. Unavailable
for the match against Iceland after being banned for repeated yellow bookings,
striker Valentin Mihăilă was left out.
Thus Romania’s
team includes goalkeeper Florin Niţă, defenders Vlad Chiricheş, Andrei Burcă,
Nicuşor Bancu, midfielders Răzvan Marin, Alexandru Cicâldău, Nicolae Stanciu,
Ianis Hagi and strikers George Puşcaş and Andrei Ivan. Of the 26 players
called up to the squad, 11 are competing in the domestic championship, while 15
are playing for foreign clubs, 4 in Italy and Turkey each, 2 in the Czech
Republic and one each in Germany, England, Spain, Hungary and Scotland.
Iceland’s
headcoach, Arnar Vidarsson, also presented his squad ahead of the matches his
team will play against Romania and North Macedonia. Runar Mar Sigurjonsson,
currently enrolled at CFR Cluj, was not selected.
The match will
be held on Steaua Bucharest stadium on Thursday. The six referees are from
Russia.
In Group J,
Germany has already secured qualification to the World Cup, where the winners
of each preliminary group can qualify. The ten teams in second position and the
best-ranked two teams in Nations League, other than those in second position in
the preliminaries, will play playoff matches to secure qualification.
Germany
currently tops the league tables with 21 points, followed by Romania with 13 points, North Macedonia and Armenia each with 12 points, Iceland with 8 points
and Liechtenstein with 1 point. (VP)
COVID-19 IN ROMANIA – Romania saw 7,304 new
infections and 177 new deaths on Tuesday, so a total of 314,295 people have
been infected since the start of the pandemic. A record 1,093 people are
receiving hospital treatment in intensive care. President Klaus Iohannis on
Tuesday evening said Romania is facing a very complicated situation, and until
a viable vaccine emerges, restrictions are the only way to protect the
population and to ease pressure on the healthcare system.
NATO – NATO cannot remain without nuclear
weapons, as long as Russia and China won’t renounce this type of weaponry,
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday on the sidelines of NATO’s
annual Conference on Weapons of Mass Destruction, Arms Control, Disarmament and
Non-Proliferation, hosted by the Romanian Foreign Ministry. Secretary
Stoltenberg said the world’s nuclear arsenal has been reduced by 90% in the
last 40 years, and only three NATO allies dispose of such weapons, albeit with
security guarantees in place. Romania’s Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu in turn
called for a global non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, adding that China
should join Russia and the United States by taking part in the START nuclear
disarmament programme. The meeting marks the anniversary of 50 years since the
treatment on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons took effect and is a preview
of the assessment conference scheduled for August 2021. The event was
originally scheduled to take place in March in Bucharest as a sign of
recognition of Romania’s high profile within the Alliance, but was rescheduled
in videoconference format due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
MOLDOVA – Romania wants to
remain a solid partner for Moldova’s civil society, and Sunday’s second round
of the presidential election will be closely monitored, President Klaus
Iohannis said on Tuesday. The president said the results of the first vote,
favoring pro-Western candidate Maia Sandu, is very pleasing, saying it is a
vote in favor of an irreversible democratic evolution of the Republic of
Moldova, something which Romania has been supporting unequivocally. Former
Prime minister Maia Sandu will face off the current president of the Republic,
Socialist Igor Dodon, in the second round next Sunday. In the first round on
November 1, Sandu grabbed 36% of the vote, while Dodon a little under 33%.
Pro-European candidates who’ve been ousted in the first round have expressed
their unconditional support for Maia Sandu in the presidential standoff. Renato Usatyi, who grabbed 17% of the vote in
the first round, the third-largest number, has also urged his electorate to
vote for Sandu in the second round.
FRIGATE – The Romanian frigate Queen Maria has
interrupted its participation to the Standing NATO Maritime Group on Tuesday,
leaving the port of Aksaz in Turkey to head home a month earlier than
scheduled, due to the high number of COVID-19 cases reported amongst crew
members. According to the Romanian Naval Forces General Staff, the frigate had
been taking part in a mission monitoring naval traffic in the Eastern
Mediterranean starting October 27, a mission due to complete on December 7.
However, as a significantly high number of people onboard got sick with the
SARS Cov-2 virus, the commander decided to return home earlier.
PROTEST – Trade unions of the Emergency
Ambulance services have cancelled their protest scheduled for Tuesday in
Bucharest following talks with Prime Minister Ludovic Orban and the minister of
Health and Public finance. The work-in strike scheduled for Wednesday has also
been called off, the president of the National Ambulance Trade Federations,
Gheorghe Chiş has said. During the talks the officials agreed to take on an
additional 1,000 staff for the ambulance services, which will be taken up
following vacancy-filling contests over an indefinite period of time. The
amount of ambulance workers are to be evenly divided across the country.
Gheorghe Chiş also said the authorities are considering the payment of bonuses
or medical nurse salaries to ambulance service personnel throughout the
pandemic. As regards survivors’ benefits to be paid to the families of ambulance
personnel who die to the COVID-19 virus, Chiş said the topic has been tackled,
although Parliament is already debating a draft law on the status of ambulance
personnel that regulates such situations. In another development, members of
Sanitas federation of trade unions in the field of healthcare picketed the
government building in Bucharest to protest against the authorities’ lack of
reaction to the requests for financial, staff and logistical assistance. A week
ago, dozens of trade union members in the healthcare and social assistance
areas held a first protest against what they described as the authorities’
incoherent crisis strategies for handling the pandemic. Sanitas
decided to hold such protests outside the government building every Tuesday until
the right measures are taken.
FILM – The
Romanian documentaries My Home directed by Radu Ciorniciuc and colectiv
directed by Alexander Nanau have been nominated in the 33rd edition
of the European Film Academy Awards, to be announced during a series of online
events scheduled for December 8 -12. According to the official website of the
event, in order to widen the platform to more European films in what is such a
difficult time for European cinema and artists, the EFA Board has decided to
exceptionally increase the nominations in the full length feature film
categories and in the documentary category from five to six. My Home tells
the story of a family who’s lived 18 years in the Văcăreşti Delta in Bucharest,
striving for acceptance and a self-shaped freedom. colectiv tells the story
of the first year ensuing the devastating fire of October 30, 2015 at Colectiv
nightclub in Bucharest, which killed 64 people. The film is Romania’s proposal
for the 2021 Academy Awards in the best international feature section.
FOOTBALL – Romania’s national team on Wednesday
is playing Belarus on home turf in a friendly match, in the run-up to Romania’s
last two games scheduled for this year as part of Group 1B in the European
Nations’ League. Romania will play Norway at home on November 15 and Northern
Ireland on November 18 away from home. Romania is ranked 3rd in the
group tables with 4 points, behind Norway and Austria, each with 9 points. In
October Romania lost its final chance of qualifying to the 2021 European
Championship after losing 1-2 to Iceland in the playoff semi-finals.
(Translated by C. Mateescu
& V. Palcu)
COVID-19 IN ROMANIA – Another 2.880 new cases of COVID-19
and 53 fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours, the Group for Strategic
Communication announced on Sunday. 628
patients are still in intensive care. The infection rate per thousand
inhabitants in the last 14 days stands at 2.52 in Bucharest, with high rates
also reported in Alba and Valcea counties. The rate is over 1.5 in another nine
counties. If the rate exceeds 3, authorities want to reintroduce certain
restrictions. On Saturday, hundreds of people protested in Bucharest against
restrictions imposed by the authorities to prevent the coronavirus from
spreading. A similar protest was staged in Iasi, the second-most affected city
in the country, where people are disgruntled with the ban on the pilgrimage to
Saint Paraskeva. Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said the protests are unfounded,
and anyone who doesn’t observe the regulations in force will be fined.
COVID-19 IN THE WORLD – Health authorities in numerous
states across the world have raised alarm signals regarding the mounting
pressure on national healthcare systems, in the context of a resurge of the
coroanvirus pandemic. There are nearly 37 million confirmed cases of COVID-19
globally, while over a 1million people have died worldwide, 5,500 in the last
24 hours alone, the World Health Organization reports. The figures also very
close to their corresponding marks in spring, when experts said the pandemic
peaked. The European Commission has signed an agreement with Gilead
biopharmaceutical company to receive 500 thousand shots of Remdesivir, an
antiviral drug that has been successfully used so far to treat COVID
infections. All EU member states and some of its neighbors are due to receive
dozes. China has announced its willingness to join the agreement to grant
vaccines to poor countries, an initiative launched by the WHO.
ELECTION – A partial local
election is held on Sunday in a city and three villages in Romania, where
officials could not be elected on September 27. In the three villages the first
two candidates were tied in terms of number of votes and will face each other
in the second round, while in Moldova Noua city the vote on September 27 was
invalidated due to irregularities linked to the voting procedure. In last
month’s election Social-Democrat Gabriela Firea missed her chance to win a
second mandate at the helm of the Bucharest City Hall, losing to independent
candidate Nicuşor Dan, backed by the National Liberal Party and the Save
Romania Union – PLUS Alliance. Candidates backed by the Liberals and the
Alliance won three of the six districts of Bucharest. Nationwide, the
Social-Democratic Party won 20 county councils, the Liberals 17 and the
Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania 4.
INVESTIGATION – The head of the National Agency for
Preventing and Combating Money Laundering, Laurenţiu
Baranga, has been detained for 24 hours and is accused of having used forged
diplomas, which tribunals have disqualified. According to investigators,
Baranga’s use of fake education certificates allegedly caused a prejudice worth
over a hundred thousand Euro. Baranga resigned after having taken office just
last month, after allegations arose regarding his forged Baccalaureate diploma,
which he obtained aged 32. Liberal Prime Minister Ludovic Orban denied having
any prior knowledge in this respect, saying all vetting procedures were applied
when Baranga’s candidacy was analyzed. Interim Senate Speaker, Social-Democrat
Robert Cazanciuc, said Orban has to step down for appointing a forgerer in a
public office with a direct control of Romania’s financial dealings.
MARATHON – The International
Bucharest Marathon, due to take place on Sunday, was cancelled upon the
authorities’ request, due to the negative evolution of the coronavirus
pandemic. The infection rate in Bucharest now stands at 2.52 per thousand
inhabitants. 250 professional runners had enrolled in the Bucharest marathon,
in an attempt to qualify to the Olympic Games due to take place in Tokyo next
year. We hope the specific qualities describing a professional marathon
runners, such as determination, endurance and planning, will help them overcome
this difficult moment, all the more so as some of them had already traveled to Bucharest,
coming from other continents, the president of the Bucharest Running Club,
Valeria van Groningen, has said. The decision to cancel the Bucharest
International Marathon will not be affecting runners enrolled in virtual races,
who will be taking part individually in the said events, over October 11-18.
Virtual racers get to pick their own track and start time.
HANDBALL – Romanian handball club CSM
Bucharest lost 25-30 away from home on Saturday to Vipers Kristiansand of
Norway, in a match counting towards Champions League Group A. CSM could not
field its top player, Cristina Neagu, the world’s handballer in 2010, 2015,
2016 and 2018, who tested positive for COVID-19. Previously, with Neagu in the
lineup, CSM had won both group fixtures. Scheduled for Sunday in Group B, the
match pitting SCM Ramnicu Valcea against Podravka Koprivnica of Croatia was
postponed, also due to COVID infections reported at the Romanian club. SCM has
lost the first three group matches. In the men’s Champions League, Romanian
champions Dinamo Bucharest will play straight into the Europa League group
phase, due to kick off this month.
FOOTBALL – Romania’s national football
team is today playing Norway in Nations League Group B. Romania is top of the
group tables after drawing 1-all at home against Northern Ireland and defeating
Austria 3-2. On Thursday, Romania missed the chance to qualify to the 2020
European Championship after losing 1-2 to Iceland in the playoff semis.
(translated by V.
Palcu)
AMENDMENTS – The Romanian Government is today expected to adopt a series of amendments to the Fiscal Code, providing, among other things, for the full transfer of social contributions from employers to employees, a cut from 16 to 10% in the tax on income, pensions, farming-related revenues, interest rates and rent. The Governments economic session has been so far postponed twice. The ruling coalition pointed out the new measures are bound to produce positive effects, amidst fears voiced by employers, trade unions and part of civil society. The biggest trade union confederations have announced protests would continue at national level. On Sunday some 20,000 people protested the Governments measures, while yesterday saw a big protest at Dacias manufacturing plant in Mioveni, southern Romania. The new fiscal measures have been harshly criticized by the president and the right-wing opposition.
NATO – Romanias Defense Minister Mihai Fifor is starting today taking part in a two-day meeting of NATO Defense Ministers. According to Mihai Fifor, the meeting represents a new opportunity for Romania to foster its security interests in the Black Sea region and consolidate the Alliances contribution to securing its eastern flank. The main topics on the agenda for talks are the reform of NATOs command structure, the mobility of NATO troops deployed in Europe, the developments in Afghanistan, as well as North Koreas missile and nuclear programmes. Mihai Fifor will also attend the Anti-DAESH Global Coalition meeting, held on the sidelines of the NATO meeting. He will meet with US Defense Secretary James Mattis and counterparts from Great Britain, France, Portugal, Turkey and Italy, as well as with General Curtis M. Scaparrotti, Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
EBRD – Romanias economy could report a 5.3% economic growth, which is estimated to go down to 4.2% in 2018, reads the latest forecast issued by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Previous estimates pointed to a 4% growth for 2017 and 3.5% for 2018. The National Forecast Committee last week also revised its economic growth forecast to 6.1% in 2017 as compared to the previous estimate of 5.6%. In October the IMF upgraded its economic growth forecast for Romania from 4.2% to 5.5%.
THE KING – King Mihai I of Romania is in grave condition at his house in Switzerland, which is why no event will be held to mark his name day on the feast day of Saint Archangels Michael and Gabriel. On Tuesday Mihai was administered the Holy Eucharist, after on Monday the Royal House announced his condition had taken a turn for the worse. Aged 96, the King is suffering from two forms of cancer. Ascended to the throne in 1940, Mihai I was forced to step down and go into exile in 1947 by the new communist authorities. Mihai I returned to Romania only after the anti-communist revolution of 1989, when he regained Romanian citizenship and part of the estates seized by communist authorities.
ENERGY – Romania has stepped up its negotiations with China with a view to building reactors 3 and 4 at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant and a new black coal unit at the Rovinari thermal power plant, Energy Minister Toma Petcu said on the sidelines of a ministerial conference held in Bucharest, attended by a Chinese delegation. In turn, Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu expressed Romanias interest to taking part in projects fostered as part of the new “Silk Road project in China. Melescanu highlighted Romanias strengths in this respect, its geographic position and its transport facilities, the port of Constanta, the Danube and the Danube-Black Sea canal.
THE POPE – Pope Francis today accepted an invitation to become honorary member of the Romanian Academy, extended by an official delegation of the Academy at the Vatican today. The Pope accepted the distinction, underlying his “friendly relations with Romania. The award will be sent to the Holy See by the Apostolic Nunciature in Bucharest. Pope Francis is the second pope to be named honorary member of the Romanian Academy after John Paul II, who became a member in 2001.
EUROSTAT – 25.8% of Romanias population was employed in agriculture in 2015, placing the country on the top position at EU level, against a community average of 4.4%, reads the latest report made public by Eurostat. In 2015 some 10 million EU citizens worked in agriculture, of which 7.5 in Romania, Poland, Italy, France, Spain, Bulgaria and Germany. According to Eurostat, the rate of completing higher education studies varies between 1.6% in Romania and 25% in the UK amongst agriculture workers. Finally, Romania has the lowest rate at EU level, 1.5%, in terms of full-time agriculture workers, as compared to the EU average of 16.4%.
MOLDOVA – EU Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom spoke about the unused potential of Moldovas free trade agreement with the EU, despite offering many benefits to the Republic of Moldova. The EU official is on a visit to Chisinau to mark three years since the agreement was ratified. Cecilia Malmstrom said Moldovan authorities must carry out additional reforms to step up trade relations with the Union. The EU official went on to say that Moldovas implementation of the memorandum signed with the IMF is a prerequisite to the EUs € 100 million financial package to this country. According to statistics, Moldovas exports to the EU exceeded $ 1 billion in the first nine months of the year, up by 16% as compared to the same period last year.
TOUR – As of today US president Donald Trump is on a three-day visit to China, an important stop part of his tour of Asia. According to international news agencies, the White House leader will meet his counterpart Xi Jinping against the backdrop of US efforts to reconstruct a single frontline against North Koreas nuclear programme. Trump will call on China to break all trade relations with North Korea and get in line with UN sanctions against Pyongyang. During his tour of Asia, President Trump has visited Japan and South Korea, and will next travel to Vietnam and the Philippines.
FOOTBALL – On Thursday Romanias national football team is playing Turkey at home in Cluj Napoca, central Romania, and will next play the Netherlands on November 14. Both games are friendly. Coach Cosmin Contra has called up 30 players, of whom 17 play for clubs abroad. The two games are bound to prepare preparations for the 2020 European Cup preliminaries. Romania failed to qualify to the 2018 World Cup to be hosted by Russia, after a subpar campaign with German Christoph Daum at its helm. We recall Romanian Mircea Lucescu is currently Turkeys headcoach. (Translated by V. Palcu)
BUCHAREST FORUM – High-ranking officials, representatives of the business sector and global experts are today taking part in the 2016 Bucharest Forum conference, the largest-scale international public event devoted to geopolitics and geoeconomics hosted every year by Romania. This years topic is “A Fulcrum of Strategic Changes. The event brings together over 350 participants from Europe, America, the Black Sea region, the Caucasus and Central Asia, including the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini, Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos and Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu. The 2016 Bucharest Forum is organized by the Aspen Institute of Romania and the Bucharest branch of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, with support from the Romanian Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
MEETING – The Romanian Defence Minister Mihnea Motoc is today holding talks in Bucharest with his Dutch counterpart Jeanine Hennis, whos on an official visit to Romania. The agenda for talks will focus on migration, NATO operations and security in the Black Sea region, in the context of a growing Russian military presence in the region. The two officials will also sign a letter of intent on expanding cooperation between the Romanian and the Dutch military. The Dutch official is also giving an address at the Bucharest Security Forum.
UN – The UN Security Council is today officially voting on the appointment of former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres as the new UN Secretary General. Aged 67, Guterres on Wednesday got 13 of the 15 votes of the Security Council, at the end of a selection process started in July and comprising six rounds of voting. Politician and career diplomat Antonio Guterres was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees until last December. His candidacy needs to be formally adopted by the members of the UN General Assembly, comprising representatives of 193 countries and territories. The former Portuguese Prime Minister will thus replace the current UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, whose second term in office ends on December 31, 2016.
BANKING – During the five months since the give-in-payment law came into force, the National Bank of Romania has reported over 5,300 cases of applications. Of these, 70% were challenged in court by representatives of the lending institutions, who claim that there have been cases where people decided to hand their homes over to the bank simply because they got tired of paying their rates. Banks say some 62% of credits are 90 days overdue, with the exception of some 2,000 credit holders whose outstanding debt is shorter than 90 days. On October 11 the Constitutional Court will examine the constitutionality appeal filed by several banks who have been notified by their clients regarding the giving-in-payment of their real estate properties. We recall that under this law, people with outstanding credit debt can hand over their homes to the bank in exchange for having their debt written off.
EBCG – The European Border and Coast Guard is today being inaugurated on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, to better protect the EUs external borders and to boost unity when dealing with migration challenges. The European leaders have symbolically chosen this border for the setup of the new agency, which is a rework of the FRONTEX agency. The Bulgarian-Turkish border is an important point of crossing for the migrants heading to Europe via the Mediterranean. The new European agency is designed to assist countries with most migrant arrivals in the case of a massive flow of asylum-seekers. The new structure will have its own border police staff and will be able to use an additional 1,500 staff on standby provided by member states. The setup of the new agency was accelerated in order to play down criticism over the EUs lack of action in this matter.
TENNIS – Romanian tennis player WTA 5th ranked Simona Halep is today playing Shuai Zhang, 36 WTA, in the round of 16 at the WTA tournament in Beijing, totaling some 5,5 million dollars in prize money. In the only direct encounter with the Chinese player this year Halep lost 0-2 in the opening round at the Australian Open. In the event she qualifies to the quarterfinals, Halep will next play Johanna Konta of Great Britain, who knocked out Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic in the round of 16.
FOOTBALL – Romanias national team is training for the away games against Armenia, on October 8, and Kazakhstan on October 11, as part of the 2018 World Cup preliminaries. Last month Romania drew 1-all on home turf, the first match with German coach Cristoph Daum on the bench. In other Group E fixtures, Denmark won 1-nil against Armenia at home, while Poland drew 2-all against Kazakhstan away from home. Romania will also play Poland on November 11.
(Translated by V. Palcu)
SENTENCE – The High Court of Cassation and Justice in Bucharest on Monday sentenced to prison all the four defendants in the so-called Microsoft case, one of the most notorious corruption cases in Romania. The decision is final. Two influential business people, Dorin Cocos and Nicolae Dumitru, a former Minister of Communications, Gabriel Sandu, and the former mayor of Piatra-Neamt, Gheorghe Stefan, got a total of 19 years in prison. The High Court also decided to seize some 17 million euros worth of prejudice from the four. According to the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, in April 2004 the contract for awarding Microsoft licenses in the education system was signed to the detriment of the state, allowing the payment of special bonuses to the people involved. A 60-million-euro bribe and a prejudice standing at 27 million euros were among the charges facing the crime group at the time.
UNIVERSITY – Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on Monday attendedthe opening ceremony for the new university year at the Western University of Timisoara. The president emphasized meritocracy, without which he said a better Romania would not be possible. He said that the country needed political projects looking to the future, as well as political visions and politicians who want to build a better Romania.
DEFENSE – Romanian Defense Minister Mihnea Motoc announced on Monday that Germany would allocate general staff officers to the NATO multinational brigade forming in Romania. At the same time, Bulgaria confirmed once again it would contribute 400 soldiers to the brigade, while Poland would set aside a company for the combat unit, which is set to work alongside an American unit. The Rovine 2nd Infantry Brigade, headquartered in Craiova, southern Romania, will turn into the NATO Multinational Brigade, as part of the plan laid out at the NATO summit in Warsaw that took place this summer.
URBAN DEVELOPMENT – European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Cretu, said she hoped the Romanian Parliament elected on December 11th would align Romanian legislation with that of Europe. The commissioner attended in Bucharest a conference on today’s challenges in sustainable urban development and the role European funds play in it. She made reference to the EU’s urban agenda and its role in Romania. The commissioner visited several sites financed by European funds, attending conferences and meetings with Romanian officials.
REFERENDUM – Nine out of ten Hungarians voted in Sunday’s referendum to turn down mandatory European quotas of refugees, but the low poll attendance, below 50%, invalidated the referendum. Radio Romania’s correspondent in Budapest informs that, in spite of its campaign against migration, the Conservative government led by Viktor Orban did not manage to bring people to the polls. The PM wants to validate the vote, and announced amendments to the Constitution.
NOBEL – The Nobel Prize for Medicine went this year to Japanese researcher Yoshinori Ohsumi for research on autophagy, the metabolic activity in which organisms consume their own tissues when starving. His research is considered crucial for understanding cell renewal and the body’s response to hunger and infections, especially in its genetic aspects, relevant to research into cancer and neurological conditions.
FOOTBALL – Romania’s national football team is preparing its away games against Armenia, scheduled for the 8th of October, and against Kazakhstan, on the 11th , part of the preliminaries to the 2018 World Cup to be held in Russia. Last month, the national team tied 1-all against Montenegro at home, in the first game under the guidance of German coach Cristoph Daum, the first foreign coach of a Romanian national side. In the same E group, Denmark bested Armenia 1-0, while Poland tied away from home in Kazakhstan, 2-all. On November 11, Romania is scheduled to play against Poland on home turf.
(Translated by C. Cotoiu and V. Palcu)