DISCIPLINARY ACTION – The Judicial Inspection has started a new disciplinary action, the third one, against the chief of the Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruta Kovesi. This time she is accused of not complying with the Constitutional Court’s decision when she refused to appear before Parliament. The disciplinary action document was forwarded to the Prosecutors’ Section with the Superior Council of Magistracy.
DEBATES – The Special Parliamentary Committee on the Justice Laws will start debates on Thursday on the changes to the Criminal Codes so that their provisions are brought in line with certain decisions of the Constitutional Court and of the European Court of Human Rights. Also, the Committee will correlate with the Romanian legislation the provisions regarding the confiscation of instruments and products connected to offences committed on the EU territory.
B 9 — Romania’s President, Klaus Iohannis, on Wednesday opened the first summit of the Bucharest Format, B9, a parliamentary diplomacy meeting attended by representatives of nine European countries and NATO high officials. The Romanian president said the national parliaments of the B9 member states play a key role in fairly sharing responsibilities within NATO, particularly by approving budgets meant to support a more daring NATO joint security and defence approach. On this occasion, president Iohannis underlined that starting 2017 Romania has been allotting 2% of its GDP for defence, every year. The conference is aimed at consolidating the role of national parliaments relative to security and defence issues. Some of the issues on the agenda of talks are strengthening NATO’s eastern flank, preparations for the NATO summit due in Brussels in July and fighting terrorism. The event will come to a close on Thursday.
REVOLUTION CASE — The Prosecutor General announced on Wednesday that Teodor Brateş, the main TV presenter and anchor of the Public Television Company between December 22 and 24, 1989, during the events which led to the fall of communism in Romania is being indicted for having been the main factor of disseminating fake, diversionist news, thus inducing a general psychosis regarding terrorists which deeply affected the whole population. On Tuesday, in the same case, army prosecutors announced the extension of the interval for the criminal prosecution of the former president of the country Ion Iliescu to December 27-31. Last week, the current president Klaus Iohannis endorsed the start of the criminal prosecution of Ion Iliescu, of the former Prime Minister Petre Roman and of the former deputy Prime Minister Gelu Voican Voculescu, who can be sent to court for crimes against humanity. According to prosecutors, the armed incidents that occurred after December 22, in several towns and cities across Romania, are indicative of the fact that everything occurred as the result of a pre-established plan, aimed at helping the new leaders take over power and gain legitimacy. According to official statistics, in December 1989 over 1,100 people were killed and more than 3,000 were wounded.
ID CARDS– Identity cards held by EU citizens above the age of 12 will be required to include biometric data, fingerprints and facial images, the European Commission proposed on Tuesday. Thus, the European Commission wants that common security standards be introduced at community level. However, around 80 million Europeans currently have ID cards without biometric identifiers, so these documents cannot be scanned. The move taken by the EC is part of a crackdown on the criminal use of ID cards, by terrorists and criminals who want to enter the EU, coming from countries outside the community bloc.
FOOTBALL — The current president of the Romanian Football Federation (FRF) Răzvan Burleanu, aged 33, won on Wednesday a new 4-year mandate at the helm of this forum, with 168 out of 254 votes. His main contender, former Romanian football player Ionuţ Lupescu, who had previously been the director of UEFA’s Development and Technical Assistance Committee, got 78 votes. 257 affiliated members had the right to vote in the elections for the leadership of the Romanian Football Federation. The campaign for the presidency of the Federation was given wide coverage by the media, against the backdrop of mutual accusations being levelled by Burleanu and Lupescu. (Translated by Elena Enache)
