31 May 2017, UPDATE

Romania launches campaign to promote candidacy for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council./ Romania to apply for hosting the London-based European Medicines Agency post-Brexit.

Newsroom, 31.05.2017, 19:37

UN. Romania’s
Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu is in New York until Saturday to formally
launch the campaign to promote Romania’s candidacy for a term as a
non-permanent member of the UN Security Council between 2020 and 2021.
According to the Foreign Ministry, the campaign will unfold under the motto
Romania: a lasting commitment to peace, justice and development, and
represents one of Bucharest’s most ambitious foreign policy objectives. The
voting is due to take place in June 2019. Since becoming a member of the United
Nations in 1955, Romania has held a non-permanent seat in the UN Security
Council four times.

European Medicines Agency. The government had talks on
Wednesday on a document reconfirming Romania’s bid to host the headquarters of
the European Medicines Agency, which is currently based in London, following
the UK’s exit from the European Union. The government decided to allocate the
health ministry the necessary funds to draft a strategy to promote its bid. The
Agency, which has around 900 employees, oversees the safety of the medicines
sold in the European Union, on a market of more than 500 million consumers.
When the UK leaves the Union, the European Commission will move the Agency to
another member state, and Romania is among the candidates along with Denmark,
Finland and Sweden.

Kabul attack. The Romanian foreign ministry has firmly
condemned Wednesday’s car bomb attack in Kabul in which at least 80 people were
killed and around 350 wounded. The ministry has sent condolences to the
families of the victims and expressed solidarity with the Afghan authorities
and the diplomatic community in Kabul. No Romanian citizen is among the
victims, according to the foreign ministry. The attack took place in the
diplomatic district, which is home to many foreign embassies, ministries and
the presidential palace. The German and the French embassies were most affected
by the bomb. According to international press agencies, this is one of the
bloodiest attacks in Afghanistan after the removal of the Taliban in 2001.

Inquiry. Hearings continued on Wednesday by the parliamentary
committee investigating the presidential elections of 2009, when the candidate
of the right, Traian Basescu defeated his Social Democrat rival Mircea Geoana.
Interviews were conducted with Teodor Baconschi, a former foreign minister and
Paris ambassador at the time and Anghel Iordanescu, a former member of the
National Union for the Progress of Romania led by Gabriel Oprea. The latter was
also invited for an interview, but declined to appear before the committee. He
said that in April he gave a witness statement to the Prosecutor’s Office of
the High Court of Cassation and Justice in relation to this subject. The
parliamentary inquiry committee was established following revelations by a
controversial journalist that the electoral process in 2009 was allegedly
influenced by high-ranking state officials, including heads of law enforcement
institutions.

Schengen.
The Romanian minister delegate for European Affairs Ana Birchall met the Dutch
foreign minister Bert
Koenders in The Hague on Wednesday. The two
officials mainly discussed Romania’s accession to the Schengen area and the
country’s preparations to take over the EU Council presidency in the first part
of 2019. Joining Schengen remains a legitimate objective for Romania, which has
met the necessary technical requirements ever since 2010, said minister
Birchall. Talks also tackled the UK’s leaving the Union, the future of the
community bloc and European security. On Thursday, the Romanian minister
travels to Brussels for talks with the Deputy Secretary-General
of the European Commission Jean-Eric Paquet.

Roland Garros.
World no. 4 Simona Halep of Romania on Thursday faces Germany’s Tatjana Maria, world no.
104, in the second round at Roland Garros, the second Grand Slam tournament of
the year. Also on Thursday, another Romanian player, Sorana Cirstea, who is
ranked 64th in the world, will face the Spanish player Carla Suarez
Navarro, world no. 23. The other four Romanian players in the women’s main
draw, namely Irina Begu, Monica Niculescu, Ana Bogdan and Patricia Ţig, were eliminated in the first round.