December 1, 2014
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 01.12.2014, 13:27
Romanians across the world are today celebrating the National Day of Romania. In Bucharest, the main event was the traditional military parade, which this year was given by 2 thousand 7 hundred soldiers, 280 pieces of armament and 40 military aircraft. The Romanian soldiers were joined by soldiers from the US, France, Poland and Turkey, members of NATO alongside Romania, as well as fellow soldiers from the neighboring Republic of Moldova. December 1st became Romania’s national day after the anti-Communist revolution of 1989, marking the union of 1918, at the end of the first world war, when the Romanian unitary state was set up, by incorporating all the provinces with predominantly Romanian speaking populations that back then were part of the neighboring multi-national empires. In the message conveyed on December 1st, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, who is on a visit to the Republic of Moldova, his first as Romania’s Foreign Minister, says that this year, Romania’s National Day also marks the start of a symbolic period, and the celebration of 25 years since the anti-communist revolution.
A joint IMF and EC delegation is expected to Bucharest on Tuesday, to analyse, together with Romanian officials, Romania’s 2015 draft budget. According to the Minister Delegate for Budget, Darius Valcov, the draft will reach Parliament after negotiations with Romania’s international creditors, around the date of December 10th, to be approved before the end of the parliamentary session. Darius Valcov has also stated that the project does not provide for tax and fee raises, quite the opposite. The government envisages fiscal relaxation measures, such as a lower VAT, and a stronger focus on European investments.
At Sunday’s parliamentary elections, most of the citizens of the Republic of Moldova, the former Soviet state with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population, voted for pro-European parties. The Socialists’ Party ranks first, with some 22% of the votes, followed by the Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Prime Minister Vlad Filat, with 19%. The Communist Party comes third, with 18% of the votes. Also represented in Parliament will be Marian Lupu’s democrats and Mihai Ghimpu’s liberals. The turnout was 55.86%. The next step after the validation of the election results is Parliament’s election of the next president of the Republic of Moldova.
At the summit in Dakar, the new secretary general of the International Organization of La Francophonie, the Canadian Michaelle Jean, pleaded for an economic franchophonie. Her predecessor, the Senegalese Abdou Diouf, had promoted the political dimension. Michaelle Jean said that after Diouf’s successes such as consolidating democracy in the member states, electoral assistance or crisis prevention actions, she would pay particular attention to the economic development of the member states, as most of them are poor African countries. The Organization, which also includes Romania, has 57 members and 23 observer states, which total some 900 million inhabitants, of which 274 million are French speaking. Another three observers joined the organization at the Dakar summit, namely Mexico, Costa Rica and Kosovo.
Pope Francis has called on all Muslim religious and political leaders, as well as intellectuals, to clearly and firmly condemn Islamist terrorism. During a press conference held on the plane flying him back to Rome from the historic visit to Turkey, the Pope said that he had requested that unequivocal condemnation also during the meeting on Friday with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On the last day of his visit to Turkey, Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew made an appeal to starting the rapprochement between the catholic and orthodox churches, separated for a thousand years, and signed a joint declaration saying that they will never accept a Middle East without Christians. They also voiced worries over the situation of the Christians in the Middle East, threatened by Jihadists, and also over the conflict in Ukraine and called for the observance of international law.
