December 16, 2019
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 16.12.2019, 14:00
COMMEMORATION – Romanias president Klaus Iohannis has today said that the state has delayed for an unacceptable long time finding the truth about the 1989 Revolution and has stressed that the responsible ones must be brought to justice. The statement was made during a solemn session of the Romanian Parliament, held today to commemorate 30 years since the anti-Communist Revolution of December 1989. The Romanian Orthodox Church will too hold a special mass, during which patriarch Daniel will speak of the importance of the sacrifice made by the people who fought in December 1989 to regain their freedom. Also today, the European Parliament will hold a debate, marking the three decades that have passed since the Romanian Revolution. As a first, the European Commission will present a declaration, followed by speeches given by politicians and MEPs. The debate will end in a resolution that will be voted on Thursday. More on this after the news.
ASEM – The Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu is attending the 14th Asia and Europe Foreign Ministers Meeting in Madrid. The meeting is held under the them “Asia and Europe: together for effective multilateralism” and is chaired by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell. Foreign ministers and high officials from more than 50 European and Asian countries will exchange views on how to strengthen cooperation on a wide range of areas. This is the last event in the string of Asia-Europe Meetings this year, to which Romania has actively contributed, including by hosting a meeting in May, while this country was holding the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU. On the sidelines of the event, the Romanian foreign minister has had meetings with his counterparts from Japan, Singapore, Kazakhstan and New Zealand. On Sunday, Bogdan Aurescu met with Romanian students participating in the Model Asia-Europe Meeting, voicing support for the activities carried out by the youth organizations that work on the sidelines of such top-level conferences and meetings.
EU – The Romanian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nechita-Adrian Oros is attending in Brussels a two-day meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council, focusing on the presentation of the intermediary report on the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) beyond -2020. According to a communiqué issued by the line ministry in Bucharest, the participants will discuss the rules on support for the CAP strategic plans, namely the ones regarding the funding, managing and monitoring CAP and the rules regarding the common organization of agricultural markets.
COLECTIV – The Bucharest Tribunal is to rule today for the first time in the Colectiv case, opened after a fire broke out in a Bucharest club in 2015, killing 64 people and wounding hundreds. The court has twice postponed a ruling. The defendants are the owners of the club, the firefighters that checked the club, the former mayor of the district where the club was located and representatives of the company that installed the fireworks. They have all claimed they are innocent. For each defendant, the prosecutors have asked for prison sentences of 12 years and more. The victims families have also asked for hundreds of millions of Euros in damages.
SDP – The opposition Social Democratic Party is filing today two notifications regarding the bills for which the Liberal Government in Bucharest assumed responsibility last week. One is the bill on seniority for magistrates and the other one on passenger transport, as the Social Democratic leader Marcel Ciolacu has announced. PM Ludovic Orban believes that the Social Democratic Partys decision to notify the Constitutional Court on this matter is not a social-democratic action.
LABOUR – According to Eurostat, in the second quarter of 2019, the hourly labour cost went up by 2.6% in the Eurozone and by 3.1% in the EU, as against the same period last year. Romania was reported among the countries with the highest annual increase, 13.2% wage costs, and 12.1% non-wage costs. The hourly labour costs include not only the wages and salaries paid to employees but also non-wage costs, mainly social contributions payable by the employer.
STRIKE – The French transport strike has entered the 12th day, and trade unions threaten they will not resume work on holidays either. According to the Radio Romania correspondent in Paris, traffic in Paris and across the country will continue to be disrupted. The leader of SGT, the most powerful trade union in France, stated last night that if the Government wanted the trains to travel at Christmas, they had to completely give up the proposed reform of the pension system presented last week. In an attempt to resume dialogue, the French PM Eduard Philippe has invited stakeholders for talks, and the leaders of some of the trade union confederations that accepted the invitation, have submitted a list of claims.
