Tag: world news

The leaders of the ruling coalition in Romania are to decide today on a cabinet reshuffling. A number of options are being discussed, including the elimination of several minister posts or the merger of certain ministries. Rumours also refer to plans to include in the ruling coalition the party headed by Senate Speaker Calin Popescu-Tăriceanu, the Reforming Liberal Party. The coalition currently includes the Social Democratic Party, the Conservatives and the National Union for the Progress of Romania, after the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania officially left the governing alliance yesterday. The new cabinet structure is also discussed today by the National Executive Committee of the Social Democrats, which will also decide on measures to change the public perception of this party. Some of the suggestions in this respect include the separation of political from administrative positions. The chairmen of County Councils will thus only have political coordination powers, and not financial responsibilities. The proposal is backed by the Social Democratic leader, PM Victor Ponta, who says this rule should be extended for cabinet members as well.

The EU association agreements with the Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine are not targeted against the Russian Federation, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview posted on the official website of the German government. According to Merkel, the agreements are designed to strengthen economic relations, from which Moscow should not be excluded. We would like to have good relations with Russia, the German official said, expressing support for a dialogue in the trade sector. Before they take effect, the association agreements, signed this year, need to be ratified by the national parliaments of the 28 EU member states. Romania has already ratified the documents.

The US State Secretary John Kerry is making a visit to Rome, where he is to meet today with his Russian counterpart Serghey Lavrov and with the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Talks will focus on the situation in the Middle East, after the recent death of a Palestinian minister in clashes with the Israeli soldiers rekindled tensions in Israel and West Bank. In the meeting with Serghey Lavrov, John Kerry will also discuss the crisis in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow fight against the authorities in Kiev. The Kerry-Lavrov meeting comes after the US Congress passed a law authorising new sanctions against Russia, in response to Moscow’s attitude in the Ukrainian crisis. In Moscow, the deputy foreign minister Serghey Riabkov warned that the new American sanctions would not go unanswered.

The film “Ida”, by the Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, is the great winner of the 27th European Film Awards gala held last night in Riga, Latvia. The black-and-white Polish-Danish co-production “Ida” won the award for the “Best European Film of the Year” and Pawel Pawlikowski was awarded as “The best European Director”. He was also chosen as the “Best European Script Writer”, jointly with Rebecca Lenkiewicz, with whom he worked in writing the script for “Ida”. The film also won the popularity award based on the audience votes.

Romania’s national women handball team was defeated last night by Hungary, 20-19, in its first game in Group 1 of the European Championship. The competition takes place in Hungary and Croatia. Romania’s next matches are against Spain on Monday and against Poland on Wednesday, but its chances to qualify into the semi-finals are very slim. In the 2012 European Championship, Romania came out 10th. The last medal won by Romania’s team was a bronze in 2010. The 2016 European Championship final tournament will take place in Sweden.

The British PM David Cameron Tuesday congratulated Romania’s president-elect, Klaus Iohannis, for winning last month’s elections. In a letter posted on the Facebook account of the British Embassy in Romania, Cameron says that in his campaign Klaus Iohannis expressed commitment to tackle corruption, increase accountability and improve transparency. The UK is ready to support you in making these changes, reads the message to Klaus Iohannis. Britain’s PM also says he looks forward to working with the new president of Romania in the EU, to address shared challenges, including the crisis in Ukraine and the reform of the European Union.

European Commission experts are currently in Bucharest to assess the progress made by Romania in the field of judiciary. Topics like fighting corruption, lifting immunity and the legal framework regarding incompatibilities will be discussed. The next report under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism will be made public in January or February next year. On December 9th, on the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Day, the American, Dutch and British embassies in Romania conveyed a joint message of encouragement, mentioning Romania’s progress during the country’s 25 years of democracy. Its signatories also say Romanians should get more involved in the country’s social and political life to consolidate the rule of law.

The Romanian Government and the IMF, World Bank and European Commission experts Tuesday reached an agreement on next year’s budget. According to Prime Minister Victor Ponta, a budget deficit of 1.83% of the GDP has been agreed on. Victor Ponta has given assurances that there will be no additional taxes or duties in 2015. Moreover, measures that are already in force, such as those related to economic development and social justice, have been included in the budget. The economic growth forecast for next year is 2.5%, the same level in 2014. Based on Tuesday’s agreement, the final version of the budget bill will be drawn up, so that on December 21 the Parliament should vote on it, PM Ponta has said. The international lenders’ delegation will return to Romania in January.

Romania’s Constitutional Court Tuesday decided to resume on December 16th the debates on some provisions concerning the local elected officials’ incompatibility with the membership of the boards of companies in their regions. The issue has been raised by the mayor of the Tuzla village, in Constanta County, who says a law article regarding transparency in holding public positions and punishing corruption comes against the Constitution. Based on this article, the president-elect Klaus Iohannis was found incompatible by the National Integrity Agency while he was the mayor of Sibiu. The High Court of Cassation and Justice will deliver a ruling in this case. Under the law, if a person is found incompatible, that person is banned from holding any public positions for the following three years.

The leaders of the Social Democratic Party in power in Romania Thursday night decided to convene a National Council and Congress in the spring of 2015. After analysing the results of the presidential elections held recently, when the Social Democratic leader Victor Ponta lost the runoff to the Liberal Klaus Iohannis, the party leaders decided that the Social Democrats must remain in power and come up with a new political project for the country before the legislative elections of 2016. They also voted to expel three high-profile members of the party, Mircea Geoana, Marian Vanghelie and Dan Sova, accused of breaching the party unity principle.

The Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania will leave the ruling coalition, according to a decision made on Thursday in Cluj-Napoca, by the party’s Standing Council. The ethnic Hungarian party has two minister seats in the Ponta cabinet. A final decision will be made by the Council of Representatives, which is to convene on December the 13th. The president of the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, Hunor Kelemen, said the decision reflects the fact that in the second round of the presidential elections, 80% of the ethnic Hungarians voted for the winner, the Liberal Klaus Iohannis.

The price of natural gas in Romania will not be changed as of January the 1st, according to the minister delegate for energy, Razvan Nicolescu. The Government of Romania has recently got the written approval of the European Commission to postpone the deadline for deregulating the natural gas market. The prices of the natural gas used for producing thermal power supplied to households will thus be liberalised by 2021, instead of 2018, as originally scheduled. Minister Razvan Nicolescu added that the current gas market deregulation rate in Romania is 50%.

The European Parliament maintains its confidence in Jean-Claude Juncker’s Commission, which Thursday survived a no-confidence vote tabled by far-right and anti-EU parties. The MEPs also passed a resolution aimed at preventing online companies like Google from abusing their position in the market, and demanded the enforcement of the EU legislation.

The Chisinau Court of Appeals Thursday decided that the party “Motherland” should be excluded from the election, after the Chisinau General Police Inspectorate announced the party had used funds from foreign entities in its election campaign, which is against the Moldovan law. The party leaders denied the accusations as frame-up. According to the latest opinion polls, the party was likely to get 8.7% of the votes in Sunday’s elections, which will decide whether or not the former Soviet republic will carry on its European accession efforts. Prior to Sunday’s elections, the pro-European parties in Moldova are expected to win some 39 % of the votes, and the communists just under 20%.

The Ukrainian Parliament approved the appointment of Arseniy Yatsenyuk as head of government. Voting for him were 138 Deputies from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, 83 from the National Front, one from the Opposition bloc, 32 from Samopomici Party, 21 from the Radical Party, 19 from the Volia Naroda group, 18 from Batkivshchina Party and 16 from the Economic Development group. After the elections, Yatsenyuk said he was ready to support the political reform policies of the president of Ukraine.

In Romania, a special parliamentary commission will analyse, as of today, suggested amendments to the election laws. The commission is to convene on a weekly basis to draw up the amendments and discuss the principles and priorities for each type of election, namely local, parliamentary, presidential elections and elections for the European Parliament. This decision was made after flaws have been reported in the voting process in the diaspora this November, when thousands of Romanians were unable to cast their votes in the presidential ballot. The topic was discussed yesterday in the Chamber of Deputies.

In 2014, only 17% of the cases investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Directorate have been based on notifications received from the intelligence services or the mass media, in spite of the perceived increase of the involvement of the Romanian Intelligence Service in the work of the Directorate, the chief of the institution, Laura Codruţa Kovesi, said today. Most of the notifications came from citizens and public institutions, Kovesi explained. She emphasised that, compared to previous years, the number of notifications received by prosecutors from individual citizens has increased by around 63%, which proves the people have confidence in the National Anti-Corruption Directorate. Over the past year, the efficiency of the institution’s work and the number of large-scale investigations have grown, chief prosecutor Kovesi added. She also mentioned that, according to a World Bank report, the number of trials won by the Directorate, accounting for nearly 90% of the total, is a lot higher than in other countries, where a 75% ratio is viewed as reasonable.

The US vice-president Joe Biden congratulated the president elect of Romania Klaus Iohannis for winning the elections, and said the high turnout was a proof of strong and healthy democracy. The two also discussed over the telephone about the importance of reforming the judicial system, both as a driving engine for economic growth and for national security. Joe Biden also expressed his appreciation for Romania’s contribution to NATO actions and to the fight against the Islamic State and the support given to Ukraine.

Around 150 tanks and armoured vehicles of the US Army will be stationed in NATO member countries in Europe, including eastern European countries like Romania. According to the US Army Europe commander, Gen. Ben Hodges, the tanks will be used in the exercises held as part of Operation “Atlantic Resolve,” launched by NATO amid concerns expressed by Poland and the Baltic states with regard to moves by the Russian Federation, particularly in Ukraine. Since the end of the Cold War, the US has significantly reduced its presence in Europe, which currently stands at around 29 thousand troops. The US had pulled out all tanks from the continent, but after the start of the Ukrainian crisis it deployed a battalion of last-generation tanks and armoured vehicles in Germany, to be used by the troops sent by rotation for exercises.

The head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has announced in a European Parliament meeting today the main project of his term in office, a plan that would mobilise some 315 billion euros in the next 3 years, aimed at encouraging economic growth, France Presse reports. The European Investment Bank, the financial arm of the EU, will be in charge with implementing the 3-year plan. The Bank will manage a new “European strategic investment fund,” which should be up and running by mid-2015 and run projects with a higher risk rate than the ones it usually finances. The Commission expects the plan to add between 330 and 410 billion euros to the Union’s GDP and to create between 1 and 1.3 million jobs.

Unrest has been reported for a second night in the American town of Ferguson, after the policeman who killed a black teenager was cleared. Many protests were also held in other towns in the US, France Presse reports. On Tuesday night, in Ferguson, a small suburb of St. Louis, having around 21 thousand inhabitants, more than 2 thousand National Guard troops were deployed, three times more than on Monday, to prevent looting and arson. President Barack Obama called for calm and urged people to respect the court ruling.

The President-elect of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, the Defence Minister, Mircea Duşa, other officials, colleagues of the eight servicemen who died on Friday in a helicopter crash, lit candles and sent condolences to the families and friends of the deceased. The caskets were brought on Sunday on the terrace in front of the “Nicolae Bălcescu” Ground Forces Academy in Sibiu, where a military and religious ceremony was held to commemorate the victims. Five of the eight bodies were then taken to the military unit in Campia Turzii, while the other three will be buried in their home villages in counties Arges, Alba and Olt.

The Government of Israel Sunday passed a controversial bill aimed at strengthening the status of Israel as a “Jewish” state. Parliament is next to make a decision on this text, which no longer defines Israel as a “Jewish and democratic” state, but as the “nation-state of the Jewish people”. Israel’s Arab population, the heirs of the Palestinians who stayed on their land after the state of Israel was established in 1948, and who account for one in five Israeli citizens, believe the text paves the way for turning Israeli Arabs into second-class citizens.

At least 40 people were killed on Sunday in a terrorist attack that took place in eastern Afghanistan, during a volleyball game, Reuters reports, quoting local sources. The suicide attack was committed in a village in Paktika province, near Pakistan.