August 20, 2018
Click here for a roundup of news from Romania
Corina Cristea, 20.08.2018, 13:21
INVESTIGATION — Hearings will be made today at the Prosecutor General’s Office in connection with the anti-government meeting organised by the Romanians living abroad, on August 10. We recall the military prosecutors have opened a criminal case for such crimes as abusive conduct, abuse of office and professional misconduct, regarding the way in which the gendarmes intervened during the protest. The Interior Minister Carmen Dan has apologised to all those who suffered because of violence. The opposition considers however that minister Dan should have resigned.
DNA — The Romanian justice minister, Tudorel Toader, has today announced that no prosecutor has applied for the position of chief prosecutor of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate. Candidacies can be submitted by August 24, and the new procedure should be finalised by September 6. This is a new selection organised by the Justice Ministry, after Tudorel Toader rejected all the four candidacies that had been submitted. The minister is optimistic that there will be a candidate for this position until the deadline expires. The position of chief prosecutor of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate has become vacant after Laura Codruţa Kövesi was revoked by a decree issued on July 9 by President Klaus Iohannis, who implemented a decision by the Constitutional Court.
PEASANT CIVILISATION – Săpânţa, in the northern Romanian county of Maramureş, which has been designated the Peasant Cultural Capital of the Romanian around the world, has been the venue for a cultural project titled “The United Villages of Romania”. The project has been carried out jointly with Radio Romania. This annual meeting of villages, this year devoted to the Great Union Centennial, has been attended by 800 artists, singers and folk groups from 30 county capitals, as well as from the Romanian communities around the world. The initiator of the project is an Irishman who has been living in Romania for 24 years, Peter Hurley. He says he has been impressed by the fact that the old Romanian civilisation is surviving wherever there are Romanians.
GREECE — After the debt crisis which has reduced its GDP by 25% and prompted it to take tough austerity measures, Greece is today completing a three year financial aid program. Loans worth 70 billion dollars have been granted to Greece under the European Stability Mechanism to support the Greek government’s efforts to reform the country’s struggling economy and for the recapitalisation of banks. The Greek government wants to implement a series of laws with a social impact, although deep going reforms of the social welfare system and of the fiscal system will not be started right away, news agencies report. Economists claim the Greek state has gone past the critical threshold, but the population will still have to make savings and carry the burden of austerity measures for many years to come.
TENNIS— Romanian Simona Halep, no.1 WTA, has been defeated by the Dutch Kiki Bertens, 2-6, 7-6 (6), 6-2, in the finals of the Cincinnati tennis tournament, with 2,874,299 USD dollars in prize money up for grabs. This is the third final that Simona Halep lost in Cincinnati in the past four years, but thanks to this result, she will remain no.1 WTA for at least three weeks. The Cincinnati final was the 33rd in Simona Halep’s career, who boasts 18 titles.
