April 5, 2019

Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news

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Newsroom, 05.04.2019, 14:18

VISIT Romania’s Prime Minister Viorica Dancila is paying a formal visit
to Slovakia at the invitation of her Slovakian counterpart, Peter Pellegrini.
According to a communiqué of the government in Bucharest, the visit is meant to
contribute to deepening cooperation between the two states, from a bilateral,
European and regional perspective. Dancila will be traveling to Banska Bystrica
for talks with the head of the Slovakian executive and will lay a wreath in the
National Insurrection Square. The Romanian official will next travel to the
city of Zvolen for a visit to the local military cemetery where the remains of 10
thousand Romanian soldiers, who fought for the liberation of Czechoslovakia in
WWll, are buried.

MEETING An informal meeting of the EU finance ministers is taking
place in Romania’s capital Bucharest on Friday and Saturday, against the
backdrop of Romania’s holding the EU presidency. The meeting hosted today under
the name Eurogrup, is bringing together Finance Ministers from the Eurozone and
the first working session of the informal meeting of Finance Ministers and
central bank governors, chaired by Romania’s field minister Eugen Teodorovici. Saturday
will see the second informal meeting of EU Finance Ministers. Issues such as
the impact of labour force mobility upon local economies and the role of
taxation in fostering economic growth are high on the agenda of the session on
Saturday.

DEFENCE Romania’s Defence Minister Gabriel Les is in Warsaw to
attend a meeting of Defence Ministers from countries, which are members of the Bucharest
9 Initiative. The meeting, staged jointly by field ministries from Poland and
Romania, is being attended by Defence Ministers from Bulgaria, the Czech
Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary as
well as by NATO officials and representatives of the US Department of Defence.
According to the Romanian Defence Ministry, the meeting in Warsaw is an
opportunity for tackling topical issues on NATO and EU agendas from the
perspective of NATO anniversary summit and from Romania’s holding the EU
half-yearly presidency.

DRILL Between April 5th and 13th the
Romanian navy is staging the biggest international drill in Romania’s
territorial waters and in the international waters of the Black Sea. 14
Romanian warships and six from Bulgaria, Canada, Greece, the Netherlands and
Turkey are taking part in the drill during which over 2000 servicemen will be
training to respond attacks coming from under the sea, air or surface. The
drill’s scenario implies a coordinated crisis response carried out under a UN
Security Council resolution. The aforementioned drill also involves the
participation of the NATO Permanent Black Sea Force.

TENNIS Marius Copil and Benjamin Lock are today opening the
series of Davis Cup matches pitching the tennis sides of Romania and Zimbabwe in
Piatra Neamt, north-eastern Romania towards Group Two of the Europe-Africa
zone. The second game today is pitching Dragos Dima against Takanyi Garanganga,
while on Saturday Horia Tecau and Florin Mergea will take on Benjamin Lock and
Courtney Lock. The last two single games will oppose Copil to Garanganga and
Dima to Lock. The two sides also met in 2000 in Harare, when Romanians secured
a 3-2 win.

FOOTBALL Currently signed up by Belgian team Standard Liege, the
Romanian international footballer, 22-year old Razvan Marin has signed a
five-year contract with Ajax Amsterdam, which begins this summer, the famous
Dutch club has announced. Razvan Marin is the fifth Romanian footballer who got
transferred to Ajax, after Cristian Chivu, Bogdan Lobonţ, George Ogăraru and Nicolae Mitea. Another
Romanian, Stefan Kovacs was a headcoach for Ajax in the early 1970s. We recall
that back then the famed Dutch team dominated European football.

(translated by bill)