August 7, 2014 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 07.08.2014, 19:42
The President of Romania, Traian Basescu, announced on Thursday that he rejected the nominations made by the Social Democratic PM Victor Ponta for the culture and budget ministers. The head of state described as inappropriate the two nominations, Rozalia Biro, from the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania for culture minister, and Claudiu Manda, from the Social Democratic Party, for budget minister. Under a Constitutional Court ruling, the head of state is entitled to reject one minister nomination coming from the PM, who is bound to make a new nomination in this case. On the other hand, also on Thursday, President Basescu deplored PM Ponta’s renouncing the so-called co-habitation pact that the two signed in December 2012, in a delicate political context. The PM said the agreement, aimed primarily at ensuring the political stability of the country, had been signed by the President in bad faith.
The Romanian Intelligence Service announced on Thursday that several entities in Romania are targeted by large-scale cyber-attacks. According to the Service, these attacks come from state actors, cybercrime groups and extremist terrorist groups, and the targets include public institutions, private companies and even individuals.
The Romanian Ministry for European Funds submitted to the European Commission the official texts of three programmes that might enable Romania to attract up to 5.7 billion euros in EU funding between 2014 and 2020. These include the Operational Programme on Human Capital, for which 4.22 billion euros have been earmarked, the Operational Programme on Competitiveness with a 1.3 billion euro budget, and the Operational Programme on Technical Assistance with 0.21 billion euros. This is a new step in the procedure that Bucharest has to complete for the approval of the mechanism for attracting EU funds in 2014-2020, after on Wednesday the European Commission approved the partnership agreement with Romania.
The EU announced on Thursday it reserved the right to take new measures against Russia, after Moscow’s political decision to impose a one-year ban on most food imports from the EU and USA. The European Commission, which is to assess the consequences of the restrictions imposed by Moscow, mentioned that the EU sanctions against Russia were taken as a result of that country’s illegal annexation of Crimea and of its role in destabilising east Ukraine. The Russian PM, Dmitry Medvedev, said the ban on imports was decided in response to the Western sanctions. The imports of beef, pork and chicken, fish, cheese, milk, fruit and vegetables from the USA, EU, Australia, Canada and Norway, are subject to this restriction. The Russian PM also said that his country was considering a ban on transit flights for EU and USA airlines connecting Europe and Asia via Siberia, which is the shortest route, in retaliation for the first Russian low-cost operator being forced to close down because of the Western sanctions.
While on a visit to Kiev on Thursday, the NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, called on Moscow to pull out its troops from the Ukrainian border and emphasised that the Alliance is ready to increase the assistance provided to Ukraine against Russia’s aggression. Rasmussen also said that, instead of taking measures to reduce the tension in the region, Russia continues to destabilise Ukraine and give increasingly sophisticated support to the pro-Russian rebels. The crash of the Malaysia Airlines plane on July the 17th, in a separatist-controlled area, proves the consequences of this support, the NATO official concluded. Rasmussen’s visit took place amid tensions generated by the presence of some 20 thousand Russian troops on the Ukrainian border. The Alliance fears Russia might use the pretext of a peacekeeping or humanitarian mission in order to send troops in east Ukraine, where clashes continue between the pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian army.
The delegations of Israel and of the Palestinian movement Hamas are negotiating a long-term truce, in Cairo, with the USA and Egypt as mediators. The Palestinians demand an end to the 8-year siege on Gaza, but Israel makes this conditional on the disarming of the military wing of Hamas. The conflict between Hamas and Israel left more than 1,850 Palestinians and 64 Israeli troops dead, and damages put at nearly 6 billion US dollars.
