22 July 2019, UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 22.07.2019, 19:46

Presidential elections. The president of the Social
Democratic Party, in power in Romania,
PM Viorica Dăncilă, is to have talks with the leaders of the Alliance of
Liberals and Democrats, also in the ruling coalition, and of Pro Romania, the
party headed by the former leftist prime minister Victor Ponta. The
negotiations concern the forming of a coalition with a common candidate in the
forthcoming presidential election. Viorica Dăncilă has recently said she would
like a much broader support platform, including non-parliamentary parties,
trade unions and NGOs, for the November election. Next week, the Social
Democrats are scheduled to nominate their presidential candidate, who will be
validated at a special congress on August 3rd.

Exports. Romania’s exports to the other 27 EU member countries went
up 4.9% between January and April 2019, as compared to the corresponding period
of last year, whereas imports from the Union grew by 7.5%, the National
Statistics Institute reports. Romania’s top 3 EU export markets were Germany
(23.3%), Italy (11.1%) and France (7.4%). As for imports, the three largest
partners are Germany (19.9%), Italy (9.2%) and Hungary (7.2%). In the first 4
months of the year, Romania’s total FOB exports amounted to 23 billion euro,
and total imports to 28.1 billion euro, up 8.3% since January-April 2018. The
trade deficit was little over 5 billion euro, i.e. 1.3 billion euro more than
in the corresponding period of last year.

Exercise. The 10th Eurasian Partnership MCM Dive multinational
exercise began on Monday in Constanta and other maritime areas along the
Romanian Black Sea coast. Until Thursday, tens of military divers from Romania,
Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia and the US are taking part in explosive device
search and identification drills, conducting open, semi-closed and
surface-supplied diving missions and target searches using underwater drones.
This is the only annual multinational exercise organised in the west part of
the Black Sea and designed to improve the training of military divers from NATO
members and the signatories of the Partnership for Peace.

Ukraine elections. Sunday’s parliamentary
elections in Ukraine were free and competitive and the vote counting was
transparent and well-organised, the OSCE, who monitored the voting process,
said on Monday. With some 80% of the votes counted, five parties look set to
enter Parliament: president Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People,
estimated to have won almost 43% of the votes; the Opposition Platform for Life
with some 13%; followed by ex-president
Petro Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party in third place and former PM Yulia
Timoshenko’s Batkivshcina party in fourth place and the newly formed Voice
party founded by the rock star Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, in 5th place.
According to the Central Election Commission in Kiev, with almost half of the
voters casting their ballot, this was the lowest turnout in the history of
independent Ukraine.

Brexit. The
European Commission is ready to establish working relations with any new
prime minister of the United Kingdom, a spokeswoman said on Monday, with
former foreign secretary and Brexit supporter Boris Johnson expected to become
the new Conservative leader, Reuters news agency writes. The European
Commission has also said that it is ready to engage
with the member states that would be most affected by any no-deal Brexit,
something Johnson has said he is prepared to go for to ensure Britain
leaves on Oct. 31, Reuters also notes. The EU executive is looking at what
programmes could be used for such emergency support, Reuters also quotes the
European Commission spokeswoman as saying.

Sports. Georgiana Antuca and Ana Maria
Pârvu on Monday won Romania’s first medals, gold and silver in wrestling, at the summer edition of the European Youth Olympics Festival in Baku,
Azerbaijan. Antuca defeated Gultakin Shirinova of
Azeribaijan in the 46 kg category, while Pârvu took the silver in the 49 kg
category. Romania has 103 participants in the 15th edition of the
competition, which takes place until Saturday. According to the Romanian
Olympic and Sports Committee, the participants are aged between 14 and 18 and
take part in athletics, cycling, artistic gymnastics, handball, swimming, judo,
wrestling, tennis and volleyball. The aims of the Romanian delegation is to win
between 8 and 10 medals.