24 July, 2015 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 24.07.2015, 12:15

Alexandru
Visinescu, the former warden of one of the most dreadful penitentiaries in
communist Romania, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday, at the end of
the first trial of this kind in Romania, 25 years since the fall of the
totalitarian regime. Under trial since September last year for crimes against
humanity, Alexandru Visinescu, now 90 years old, was accused of torturing the
political detainees in the Ramnicu Sarat prison, in eastern Romania. Visinescu
will lose all its military ranks and must pay
300,000 Euro worth of damages to the heirs of three detainees. The court
ruling is not final, though. Other such tormentors are also under trial,
following accusations formulated against them by the Institute for the
Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania. Over 600,000 political opponents,
intellectuals, officers and priests were imprisoned in Romania during the
communist regime, between 1947 and 1989.

The Minister Delegate for
Relations with Romanians Abroad, Angel Tîlvăr, is on a four-day visit to Italy,
where he has meetings planned with representatives of the local and central
authorities and with members of the Romanian community. The visit is designed
to help collect information on the Romanian community in Italy, which has
around one million members, to help them integrate and to ensure that
Romanians’ rights as European citizens are observed. This is the second visit
made by Minister Angel Tîlvăr to Italy this year, after the one in Catania in
February.

The New Fiscal
Code is inapplicable because of the impact that the fee and tax reductions
stipulated in it might have on the GDP, said on Friday the Governor of the
National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isarescu. He termed as ‘wise’ president Klaus
Iohannis’s decision to send the document back to Parliament for reexamination.
According to Mugur Isarescu, if it were to be applied as it is today, the new
Fiscal Code would have a 2.3% impact on the GDP, without taking into account
the rise in salaries in the public sector, which would add another 1.3% to the
deficit. Prime Minister Victor Ponta has criticized the rejection of the bill.
The Romanian Government wants the new code to come into force at the beginning
of next year at the latest and has announced it will make use of all the legal
means available to see than happen.

Most Romanians (over 78%)
think the Presidency and the Government must work together closely on important
matters, reveals a recent opinion poll. The poll indicates that only 6.9%
disagree with this idea. Also, more than 30% of the respondents agree that the
country should hold early elections, compared to 53.3% who do not. The
Government’s decision to increase the staff of the National Anti-Corruption
Directorate by another 50 prosecutors was appreciated by almost 39% of the
interviewees. The poll was conducted by INSCOP Research for the daily Adevarul
between July 9 and 14, 2015.

On Friday, Gabriel
Berca, a member of the National Union for the Progress of Romania, a former
presidential adviser under Traian Basescu and interior minister in 2012, was
taken in temporary police custody pending trial for 30 days, under charges of
influence peddling in 2010-2012. According to judicial sources, during that
time he allegedly claimed and received from a businessman over 180,000 euro in
exchange for using his personal influence on cabinet members regarding the
allocation of funds to a town hall in Bacau County, in the east.

Representatives
of Greece’s international lenders (the European Commission, the European
Central Bank and the IMF) are expected in Athens in the coming days, the EC
announced on Friday, without giving any other details. Previously, rumours had
it that the mission would start on Friday. According to some sources, there are
several logistical difficulties in preparing the discussions. The talks will
focus on the third bail-out program for Greece. The new round of negotiations
is the result of the Greek Parliament’s approving some tough conditions imposed
by the European lenders. The IMF team is headed by the Romanian Delia
Velculescu, an economist by trade, co-author of an IMF analysis of the Greek
economy. She was appointed head of the IMF mission shortly after the Greek
authorities had decided to pay the Fund a 2 billion Euro installment of its
debt, which would allow the country access to the IMF loans again.

The Constitutional Court in
Chisinau, in the neighboring Republic of Moldova, on Friday endorsed the
initiative to revise the Constitution with regard to the way in which the
president of the republic is elected. According to the draft law, the head of
state would be elected by the MP majority, not three fifths as it is today. The
initiative belongs to a group of MPs members of the Liberal democratic Party,
the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, the three pro-European parties
which, on Thursday, signed the agreement on the setting up of the Alliance for
European Integration. According to politicians, by changing the proceeding for
the election of the president, could prevent another political crisis next spring,
when the term in office of the current president expires. In the meantime,
negotiations for the formation of a new government continue.

The operations that the
Turkish army and police forces started on Friday against the Islamic State
terrorist organization and the rebels members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK) will continue, said the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. Some 300
people were arrested on Friday, in an operation carried out across the country.
Of them, 37 were foreigners. The operation was staged a few days after a
suicide attack blamed on the Islamic State, which took place in Suruc, near the
border with Syria, claiming lives and wounding many. Also, Turkey carried out
its own air raid against Jihadist targets in Syria, after Thursday’s clashes
between Turkish soldiers and Jihadists. Moreover, Turkey has authorized the US
to use more air bases in the region to fight against the Islamic State.

A big parade of over 300
knights, damsels, ladies and minstrels from Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary gave
the official start on Friday of the 23rd Sighisoara Medieval
Festival, in central Romania. Hosted by the only inhabited medieval fortified
city in south-eastern Europe, the festival brings to Sighisoara 12 Romanian and
Hungarian music bands, 11 theatre and medieval animation troupes and 7 knights’
orders from Romania and Bulgaria. The festival will host fine art exhibitions,
book launches, an organ concert and film screenings. This year’s goal of the
festival is to break a record every day: the biggest sword in the world, the
biggest flag in the world, the biggest pretzel and the biggest folk mask in the
world. Organizers say that approximately 25,000 tourists are expected to
Sighisoara for this festival.