6 July 2015, UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
Corina Cristea, 06.07.2015, 12:15
At the European summit on Tuesday Athens will introduce a new set of proposals aimed at leading to an agreement with the international lenders. The announcement was made by the Greek government, after a phone conversation between the Greek PM Alexis Tsipras and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Eurozone leaders will gather in Brussels on Tuesday evening, after a meeting of the finance ministers. The extraordinary summit will focus on the consequences of Sunday’s referendum in Greece, by which the population rejected the international lenders’ proposals regarding a new financial aid program. The negative vote cast by the Greek voters has rendered the talks more difficult, but the objective remains keeping Greece within the Eurozone, said on Monday the Eurogroup leader Jeroen Dijsselbloem. One day after the referendum, the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis resigned, saying he was thus trying to smooth the way for a new agreement. His office was taken over by the deputy foreign minister Euclides Tsakalotos. News agencies recall that Tsakalotos made the European partners angry when he accused the creditors of making use of ‘terrorism’ to intimidate the Greek people and have them accept even tougher austerity measures. According to the official results, over 61% of the Greeks said ‘no’ to the measures requested by the international lenders. Alexis Tsipras has stated that this does not mean that Greece separates itself from Europe and has promised a resumption of negotiations, but on a plan of credible and fair reforms from a social point of view.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis says in a Facebook message that he hopes solutions will be found for the European future of Greece. “Even though Greece has voted No in yesterday’s referendum, I hope that political and economic wisdom will prevail, and solutions will be found to express a Yes for Greece’s European future. It is very important for all EU member states to continue and seek avenues to come out of the crisis”, the Romanian president said. At the same time, the Romanian central bank has firmly state that, irrespective of events in Greece, people in Romania who have money in Greek owned banks have no reason to worry, since branches throughout the country are in compliance with domestic regulations.
A major naval military exercise with Romanian participation is being held off the coast of Bulgaria. These NATO maneuvers, scheduled to end on July 12, involve over 30 ships, 10 aircraft and 1,700 military personnel from Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, the US and Turkey. The ‘Breeze 2015’ exercise, aims to improve interoperability in crisis situations under NATO standards. In another move, the US Navy have announced they deployed the missile destroyer the USS Porter to the Black Sea with the aim of consolidating partnership and operational capability within NATO, in partnership with regional allies.
On Monday, the Hungarian Parliament passed the law which toughens asylum granting regulations and gives Budapest legal grounds to raise a wall on the border with Serbia, in order to stop the inflow of illegal immigrants. The new law shortens the period during which asylum applications can be processed and allows Budapest to send citizens of Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq to a country regarded as safe. Previously, the UN and the Council of Europe had criticized the bill, saying that such legislation weakened the protection of immigrants coming from war zones. The Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has stated that Hungary’s borders must be protected by all means from the immigrants that come via the Balkan countries. Over 70 thousand immigrants have illegally come to Hungary via Serbia since the beginning of the year.
Speaking in an interview with the Russian section of Deutsche Welle, the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stated that Russia is not threatening NATO member countries yet, but it could use force against Moldova and Georgia. He has also said that Russian countries bordering Russia who are not NATO members have reason to worry after Moscow announced it would upgrade its arsenal. According to Stoltenberg, attempting to guess the intentions of the Russian leadership is a difficult task. The Alliance has bolstered presence on its eastern flank, showing that, in Stoltenberg’s words, ‘NATO never sleeps’.
On Monday, the Romanian – Dutch pair made up of Horia Tecau and Jean-Julien Rojer qualified for the quarter finals of the men’s doubles at Wimbledon, after defeating the Australian Lleyton Hewitt and Thanasi Kokkinakis 7-6, 6-3, 7-6. Also, the 9th ranked Romanian — Indian pair Florin Mergea/Rohan Bopanna won the match against Lukasz Kubot of Poland and Max Mirnii of Belarus, and made it to the quarter finals as well. On the same day, Romanian player Monica Niculescu, ranked 48th in the WTA classification, was defeated by the Swisss Timea Bacsinsky and left the tournament.
