April 27, 2015 UPDATE
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România Internațional, 27.04.2015, 12:15
The Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, who is paying a 2-day official visit to Italy, met Monday with his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella. The talks focused, among others, on Romania’s Schengen accession, on cooperation between the two countries within the EU and NATO and the situation of the Romanian community in Italy. On Tuesday the Romanian President will hold talks with the Italian PM Matteo Renzi and will deliver a speech before the Romanian students in Italy at the Accademia di Romania. Numbering around 1 million people, the Romanian community in Italy is the largest community in the Diaspora. Since he took office on December 21st 2014, President Klaus Iohannis has also visited France, Germany, Poland as well as the neighboring Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.
The Romanian foreign minister, Bogdan Aurescu, paid an official visit to Norway on Monday where he met with is Norwegian counterpart, Borge Brende and the speaker of Parlaiment, Olemic Thommessen. During the talks with the Norwegian foreign minister, Bogdan Aurescu underscored that the Norwegian investors could capitalize on Romania’s economic stability to start businesses in this country and pleaded for the intensification of bilateral trade exchanges, which at present stand at 675 million euros. The two foreign ministers signed a convention for avoiding double taxation and tax evasion related to income taxes. The talks with the Norwegian officials also focused on topics related to the European and security agenda, to the developments in the Eastern Neighborhood, the preparations for the Eastern Partnership summit to be held in Riga in May and cooperation within NATO. Minister Aurescu also met in Oslo with representatives of the Romanian Students League from Aboard.
On Monday Romania marked 5 years since it signed with the Republic of Moldova a Joint Declaration on setting up a Strategic Partnership for Chisinau’s European Integration. The document sets the framework and mid-term development priorities of the privileged relation between the two countries. According to the Foreign Ministry, since then the Republic of Moldova has negotiated, signed and started to implement its EU-association agreement, a document paving the way for the country’s political and economic integration into the EU. Furthermore, the citizens of the Republic of Moldova have traveled around Europe without visas for a year now and the inauguration of the Iasi-Ungheni gas pipeline in August 2014 is another step towards strengthening the connection between the former Soviet Republic and the EU. In a message conveyed on the occasion, the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said that in the 5 years since the signing of the Joint Declaration, the Republic of Moldova has reported “important progress” towards EU integration.
Over 4,000 people are known to have died in the 7.9 magnitude quake that struck an area between Nepalese capital Kathmandu and the city of Pokhara. Thousands have been wounded with further loss of life in China, India, and the mountaineers’ camps on Mount Everest. The most powerful quake of the past 80 years in Nepal had a replica on Sunday measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale. Numerous countries and humanitarian organisations have responded sending aid to the affected areas. According to the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest, all the 36 Romanians in Nepal are unscathed and out of harm’s way. According to sources with the same ministry, authorities in Nepal have declared a state of emergency in the affected regions recommending Romanians to avoid traveling to Nepal and the neighboring regions in India.
Romanian top tennis player Simona Halep is back to second place in the world starting on Monday, a position she held last year as well. Even though she was defeated on Saturday in the semi-finals in Stuttgart by Danish player Caroline Wozniacki, Halep took advantage of Maria Sharapova’s elimination in the eighth finals, replacing the latter as second in the WTA standings, still dominated by Serena Williams. In other tennis news, on Sunday in Bucharest, the Romanian double Marius Copil and Adrian Ungur won the BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy, with prizes totaling almost half a million Euro, defeating the US- New Zealand pair Nicholas Monroe/ Artem Sitak. The singles competition victory went to Spanish player Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who played against Czech player Jiri Vesely.
The Romanian Foreign Ministry announced Monday that it evacuated from Yemen, a country torn apart by a civil war, another two persons, a Romanian citizen and her husband, a Yemenite citizen. So far 57 Romanians and 10 members of their families have been repatriated. Also the Romanian Foreign Ministry will continue efforts for the safe evacuation of the Romanian citizens from Yemen and will stay in permanent contact with them as well as with the competent authorities in the region.
