December 20, 2024
A roundup of local and international news.
Newsroom, 20.12.2024, 13:55
Parliament. The two chambers of the Romanian Parliament resulting from the elections on 1st December are meeting today in separate sessions for the first time, being summoned by president Klaus Iohannis. The speakers of the two chambers and the other members of the permanent bureaus are also elected. The parliamentary groups are being presented and the parliamentary committees are established, in keeping with the political make-up of each chamber. The new Parliament numbers 465 MPs, including 331 deputies and 134 senators. Seven parties have representatives in the two chambers, namely the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party, the Save Romania Union, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, as well as three sovereignist parties, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, SOS Romania and the Party of Young People. Of the 465 MPs, 364 are men and 101 women, and most of them are between 45 and 64 years old.
Talks. The representatives of the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania may today resume talks to form a new government, political sources have said. Negotiations came to a standstill on Thursday, following the unexpected announcement of the Social Democratic leader Marcel Ciolacu that his party would no longer take part in the talks, but will support a possible minority right-leaning government. Ciolacu later met the Liberals’ interim leader Ilie Bolojan. The president of the Save Romania Union Elena Lasconi said her party is again willing to take part in talks to form a ruling coalition, but under the same conditions as before, namely the transparency of the budget situation. President Klaus Iohannis called on pro-European political parties to resume talks on the formation of a government and said he would call for consultations with parliamentary parties.
Visit. Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban is in Bucharest for talks with prime minister Marcel Ciolacu. On 22nd November, the Romanian prime minister met his Hungarian counterpart in Budapest, for talks, among others, on Romania’s full entry into Schengen. Hungary is holding the rotating EU presidency until the 31st of December. Prime minister Orban was in Brussels to attend the EU-Western Balkans summit on Wednesday and the European Council on Thursday. On Friday, Orban will also travel to Bulgaria.
EU summit. The war in Ukraine, the EU’s trade relations with the United States, the situation in the Middle East and Russia’s interference in the elections were some of the subjects discussed at the EU winter summit in Brussels. Attending the summit was also Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, who called for unity between the European Union and the United States to obtain peace and save Ukraine. The EU heads of state and government also discussed the supply of military equipment and ways to consolidate Ukraine’s energy sector and other civilian infrastructure that has come under deliberate and increasingly intense attacks by Russia. Talks also looked at the effects of Donald Trump’s return to office on transatlantic trade relations. The EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the EU and the United States should do everything to avoid a trade war because both economies would be affected and China would be only one standing to gain. Also, European leaders recognised Russia’s meddling in the election process in Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia and called for more efficient coordination across the Union to combat Moscow’s hybrid attacks.
