Radio România Internațional

Tag: Spain

  • 3 September, 2016

    3 September, 2016


    European Union. The Romanian foreign minister Lazar Comanescu is today attending an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Gymnich format held in Bratislava. Talks look at the recent developments in Turkey, the situation in Ukraine, with emphasis on the implementation of the Minsk agreements, and the global strategy for the EUs external and security policy. The EU foreign ministers will also hold talks with their counterparts from the EU candidate countries about counter-terrorism and ways to prevent and combat radicalisation.



    Spain government. Spains parliament on Friday night rejected a new attempt by prime minister Mariano Rajoy to form a new government, making the possibility of fresh elections for the third time within a year increasingly likely, international news agencies note. Rajoy, the leader of the centre-right Peoples Party, obtained 170 votes in Parliament, but he needed a simple majority from Spains 350 MPs. Political parties have two months to reach a compromise before King Philip VI calls early elections. In this event, the vote would be held by the end of the year.



    G20. US president Barack Obama arrived in China to attend the G20 summit that gets under way on Sunday in the south-eastern city of Hangzhou. Today, Obama will have talks with his counterpart Xi Jinping about trade, investments, the North-Korean nuclear case and the territorial disputes involving China. The G20 summit is Obamas last international conference as president of the United States.



    Russia-Japan. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday called on Russian president Vladimir Putin to put an end to the 70 years of tensions between their countries and build a new era in bilateral relations. Abe, who attended an economic forum in Vladivostok, described as “abnormal” the absence of a peace treaty between Japan and Russia. Putin said it was extremely difficult to find a solution. The tension in the relations between the two countries is caused by a dispute over four islands in the Kuril archipelago that were incorporated into the former USSR at the end of World War II. The talks on the status of these volcanic islands, referred to as the Northern Territories by Japan, have reached a dead end after the annexation of the Crimean peninsula by Russia in March 2014, an action which Tokyo joined the West in condemning.



    US Open. World no. 5 Simona Halep of Romania today faces the Hungarian player Timea Babos for a place in the fourth round at the US Open, the final Grand Slam tournament of the year worth over 22 million dollars in prize money. Earlier, the Romanian player Monica Niculescu lost in straight sets to Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark in the third round. In the mens doubles, the Romanian-Dutch pair Horia Tecau and Jean Julien Rojer today face the Croatia-New Zealand pair Mate Pavic and Michael Venus in the second round.



    Football. Romanias football side face Montenegro on Sunday in their first match as part of the 2018 World Cup preliminaries. Group E also includes Poland, Denmark, Armenia and Kazakhstan. The match on Sunday is Romanias first with the German coach Cristoph Daum at the helm, the first foreign national to hold this position. He was appointed coach of the national team after the European Championships this summer, when Romania, coached at the time by Anghel Iordanescu, finished last in their group, with only one point, having drawn against Switzerland and lost to France and Albania. (Translated by: C. Mateescu)




  • April 18, 2016 UPDATE

    April 18, 2016 UPDATE

    GOVERNMENT – Dragoş Nicolae Pîslaru was sworn in as labour minister in the presence of the Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis. He was proposed by the PM Dacian Ciolos to replace the outgoing minister Ana Costea. A former advisor on economic issues in the PMs cabinet, Pîslaru, 40, is a graduate of the international economy department of the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies and holds an MA degree in international relations obtained at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Ana Costea resigned last week following discontent expressed by the trade unions over the draft emergency ordinance on state employees salaries. The PM Cioloş announced the government would continue talks with the social partners about the salaries of state employees with a view to drafting a new law. This is the first resignation of a minister from the technocratic government invested in Romania last November.



    JUDICIARY – The Bucharest Court Monday upheld the prosecutors request to extend the temporary arrest warrants issued for two Israeli citizens, employed by a security company from Israel, who are accused of harassing the chief prosecutor of the Romanian Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruta Kovesi. Weiner Ron and Geclowicz David were arrested on April 3 for 30 days following a ruling of the Bucharest Court. The two are also accused, among others, of setting up an organized crime group and of illegally accessing an IT system. According to prosecutors, in March they made several threatening phone calls and conducted phishing attacks with a view to obtaining information from the e-mail accounts of the Romanian chief prosecutors relatives.




    DIPLOMACY – Spains Justice Minister, Rafael Catala, will be in Romania on Tuesday and Wednesday, Spains Embassy in Bucharest has announced. During the visit, the Spanish official will have talks with the Romanian Foreign Minister, Lazăr Comănescu, with his counterpart, Raluca Prună, and with the head prosecutor of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruţa Kovesi. The meetings confirm and reinforce the close bilateral ties and the judicial cooperation between the two states. Around one million Romanians make up the largest foreign community in Spain.




    PARLIAMENT – The Parliament of Romania will propose that Romanias sustainable development strategy, dating back to 2008, should be reviewed and turned from a government resolution into a law. The announcement was made by the head of the Foreign Policy Committee in the Chamber of Deputies, László Borbély, who Monday chaired an international roundtable of Central and Eastern European parliaments focusing on sustainable development. The roundtable was organised by the Romanian Chamber of Deputies and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an international body that brings together the parliaments of 162 countries. The Parliament of Romania celebrated on this occasion 125 years since it joined that body.




    POLL – Nearly 90% of the Romanians do not agree with immigrants being hosted in their town or village, according to a poll made public in Bucharest. This is a significant higher rate than in September 2015, when 67% of the interviewees gave that answer. More than 80% also disagree to refugees settling in Romania, with only 10% accepting this option. The poll was conducted by INSCOP between March 21 and 28, and commissioned by the daily “Adevărul. The maximum margin of error is 3%.




    STATISTICS – The number of employees in Romania last year exceeded 6 million, up over 200,000 as compared to 2014, according to data made public by the National Statistics Institute (INS). Last year the number of people employed in agriculture dropped by over a quarter of a million, according to the same source, while the number of employees in public administration went up by 50,000 and in education by over 40,000. The unemployment rate was 6.8%, INS also said.

  • February 5, 2016

    February 5, 2016

    5 people have died and around 30 have been wounded in a serious car accident that occurred this morning on a national road in the south east of Romania, 60 kms away from Bucharest. A coach transporting 33 people hit from the back a tipper truck carrying sand. No braking traces have been identified at the accident site. The authorities are considering several scenarios among which technical problems or the likelihood of the bus driver falling asleep. A code red intervention plan has been activated, including the mobilization of human and material resources of all institutions with intervention attributes.



    The Romanian Defense Minister, Mihnea Motoc, met Friday with the French Defense Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, on the sidelines of the informal meeting of the EU defense ministers hosted by Amsterdam. The talks focused on security issues as well as on cooperation as part of international organizations, shows a press release of the Romanian Defense Ministry. Minister Motoc highlighted the importance of maintaining the cohesion and unity of the North Atlantic Alliance and the need to carry on with the process of adapting the organization to the new security environment, stressing the necessity of consolidating the NATO presence on the eastern flank and the Black Sea, the Romanian Defense Ministry shows. Amsterdam hosts on Friday a meeting of the European defense and foreign ministers. Informal talks are taking place for the revision of the European Strategy on foreign and security policy. Romania is represented by the Foreign Minister, Lazar Comanescu.



    Spain has confirmed that a pregnant woman has been diagnosed with the Zika virus, this being the first case reported in Europe. The Spanish Health Ministry says the woman has recently returned from a trip to Columbia where she is supposed to have been contaminated. The World Health Organization set up in early February a Global Response Unit to coordinate the actions meant to fight the propagation of the Zika virus. The measure was taken following the sudden increase in cases of microcephaly and other neurological disorders registered in Brazil, a country that has confirmed more than 400 cases of new born babies suffering of microcephaly, most likely caused by the Zika virus. The WHO has declared the virus, which continues to spread across the two Americas, a global public, medical emergency.



    Friday saw the drawing of lots for the single matches to be played by Romania and the Czech Republic as part of the Fed Cup, to take place on Saturday and Sunday in Cluj (in the north west of Romania). The match counts for the World Group 1st round. The first match will be pitting Simona Halep (3rd in the WTA classification) and Karolina Pliskova (13th in the WTA ranking). The Czech Republic is also represented by Petra Kvitova (9th in the WTA ranking), Barbora Strycova (41st WTA seed) and Denisa Allertova (59th WTA seed). In the absence of Alexandra Dulgheru(61st in the WTA ranking) and Irina Begu (31st) who are injured, Romania’s team is made up of Simona Halep, Monica Niculescu (WTA 40th seed), Andreea Mitu (96th in the WTA) and Raluca Olaru (45th in the WTA, doubles). The Czech team has been the best team of the past years at the Fed Cup, wining 9 titles including in 2015.



    The UN mediator for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, will explain today to the ambassadors of the 15 members of the UN Security Council his decision to suspend the peace negotiations in Geneva. Staffan de Mistura, who has been mediating since Monday the negotiations between the regime in Damascus and the Syrian opposition, announced Wednesday a 3-week break in the negotiations, which are meant to work out a political solution to the crisis. No date has been advanced for the resumption of negotiations in the context in which the Syrian opposition representatives announced they would not negotiate unless the regime in Damascus ended bombardments in the civilian areas and started releasing the prisoners. In another development, donations for Syria worth 11 billion dollars were gathered in London, on Thursday, at an international donor’s conference. (news translated by Lacramioara Simion)

  • Romanian-Spanish Relations

    Romanian-Spanish Relations

    The delicate context in Europe generated by the Greek crisis and internal anti-European unrest ranked high on the agenda of the visit of Romanias president Klaus Iohannis to Madrid. On Monday, following an official meeting with King Felipe VI and his wife Letizia, the president said that Europe cannot be split between Eurozone and non-Eurozone states and called for unity and solidarity. Iohannis expressed gratitude to the Spanish authorities for the way they handle the approximately 1 million Romanians in Spain. In turn, King Felipe said Romania deserved to join Schengen due to its consistent and relentless efforts to strengthen the EUs external borders. The president later met with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Talks focused on economic cooperation and the Romanian community in Spain. President Klaus Iohannis recalled that Spanish investment exceeded 1.3 billion euros in 2014 and called for a larger involvement of Spanish investors in Romania. Klaus Iohannis:



    “Its worth mentioning that over the last 10 years, of which 6 have been affected by the effects of the crisis, two-way trade has doubled. But theres room for more. During our talks I have highlighted the fact that we want a broader, more diversified presence of Spanish investors in Romania, particularly in the long-term. We urge Spanish companies to make foreign direct investment in such fields as energy, industry or agriculture.



    In turn, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy praised the Romanian community for integrating well in Spain and for contributing to Spains economic growth:



    “Its a well-known fact that the community of Romanians in Spain totals 1 million people. But what I would like to underline is something that brings me a great deal of satisfaction as a Spanish and European citizen, namely the complete integration of this community in Spain, a community that contributes to the development of both Spain and Romania and to the progress of our societies.



    Additionally, president Klaus Iohannis met with representatives of the Romanian community, a net contributor to his success in Novembers presidential race last year. The president told Romanians that the presidency has already started working on a coherent vision on the Romanian Diaspora. The president wants Bucharest to have a closer relationship with Romanians abroad and to offer consular services that are more effective and reflect reality, which is exactly what Romanian associations in Spain want.


  • June 18, 2014 UPDATE

    June 18, 2014 UPDATE

    ECONOMY– The Romanian Government on Wednesday endorsed a draft law introducing a 5% reduction in employer social security contributions, as of October 1st. The aforementioned draft will be submitted to Parliament for debate and adoption in an emergency procedure. The draft is aimed at easing taxation on labour. Although the decision has not been green-lighted by Romania’s international lenders, Prime Minister Victor Ponta has given assurances there is enough money for this measure to be introduced. He has also said that the implementation cost will stand at around 191 million euros in the last quarter of this year and that the Romanian state will reach all macro-economic goals established jointly with the IMF, among which maintaining the same budget deficit. The Cartel ALFA National Trade Union Confederation however, argues that the government’s measure will in fact increase the multinational companies’ net profit and will decrease contributions to the pension fund. Therefore, Cartel ALFA asks for the 5% cut to be applied to employees and not to employers. The decision has been termed by the opposition as a populist one, given that 2014 is an election year in Romania.



    UKRAINE CRISIS– Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday made public his decision to order a unilateral ceasefire in the east of the country to allow pro-Russian insurgents to lay down weapons. Poroshenko made the announcement following a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, after two Russian journalists got killed in eastern Ukraine, a region ravaged by separatism. Russia has warned that none of the murders against Russian citizens will go unpunished. The UN Security Council condemned, in a declaration, the killing of two journalists and called for opening an investigation into violence against reporters, FP reports. The declaration also makes reference to the killing in May, of an Italian photojournalist, actually the first journalist to be killed since the start of the pro-Russian separatist uprising in Ukraine. In another move, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Wednesday asked again for the “immediate and unconditional” release of its observers who have been detained for several weeks now in eastern Ukraine. The OSCE accuses Russia of further sending paramilitary troops and guns to Ukraine.



    IRAQ-The Iraqi Government on Wednesday made an official request to the US to launch air strikes against the Jihad fighters who unleashed a flash offensive in Iraq, foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari has announced. The request was made after Jihadi fighters on Wednesday laid siege to Iraq’s largest oil refinery, some 200 kilometres away from the capital city Baghdad, and set oil reserves on fire. Earlier, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on Iraqi people to stay united against militants. Since June 9, the Government in Baghdad (with a Shia majority membership) has been faced with an offensive by the Sunni radical group “The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant”, which took control of some important regions in the north, east and west of the country, in a bid to create an Islamic state in the area. In another move, Iranian President Hossan Rohani, whose country is inhabited by a predominantly Shia population on Wednesday warned he would do anything it takes to protect Shia Islamic Holy Places in that country from the fundamentalist threat posed by the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant”.



    VISIT- The minister delegate for the Romanians Around the World, Bogdan Stanoevici will pay a visit to the United States, between June 19th and 23rd. The Romanian official will have talks with Mrs.Loretta Sanchez, member of the House of Representatives (D-California) and co-chair of the Congressional Romania Caucus. Bogdan Stanoevici will also meet in New York with representatives of the Romanian community and the Romanian language press. The minister will also attend the 15th edition of a festival entitled “Romania’s Day on Broadway”.



    ASSAULT-The Romanian Foreign Ministry has asked the French authorities to clarify as soon as possible the circumstances in which a young Romanian of Roma origin was assaulted by a group of people on the outskirts of Paris. The Ministry believes that such extremely violent acts against European citizens, Romanians included, are to a certain extent the result of a public display of a xenophobic and often racist attitude by some politicians from the community area. A young Romanian of Roma origin was abducted on Friday in an improvised camp on the northern outskirts of Paris by 12 people who beat him until he became unconscious and then abandoned him. French authorities have publicly condemned the violence and opened an attempted murder investigation.



    MADRID-King Juan Carlos on Wednesday promulgated the organic law of abdication, which put an end to his 39-year long reign, news agencies report. On Thursday, June 19, Crown Prince Felipe of Asturias will be proclaimed King of Spain before the plenary sitting of Parliament.