February 15, 2016 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 15.02.2016, 12:15
The Romanian PM Dacian Ciolos met Monday in Brussels with the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker. The talks focused on the phenomenon of migration, the situation in the Republic of Moldova as well as the prospects of Romania’s Schengen accession. The two officials also tackled the progress made by Romania as part of the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification, highlighted in the latest European Commission report. In this context, Jean-Claude Juncker has given assurances that by the end of the mandate of the current European Commission (2019) the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification for Romania will have been lifted. The mechanism was imposed in 2007 upon Romania’s EU accession. The PM Dacian Ciolos started a 2-day visit to Brussels where he will also meet with the president of the European People’s Party, Joseph Daul, and with the commissioners for neighborhood policy and enlargement negotiations, Johannes Hahn, and for the budget, Kristalina Georgieva.
The Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, met Monday in Bucharest with the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk. High on the agenda of talks were the phenomenon of migration, which, according to Tusk, tests the EU’s limits, as well as the Brexit file. Klaus Iohannis said Romania supported Great Britain to stay in the EU but Bucharest officials said they wanted to eliminate any risk of discrimination for the Romanian citizens who go to Great Britain to work, in the context in which London asks for the reduction of social benefits granted to the workers from other community states. In turn, Donald Tusk said that they were to negotiate the EU membership status of Great Britain. The meeting took place ahead of the European Council meeting scheduled for February 18-19, where they will possibly conclude a political agreement regarding the plan recently put forward by Brussels and proposed to Great Britain in order to avoid Britain’s exit from the EU.
The president of the Republic of Moldova Nicolae Timofti travels to Bucharest on Tuesday for a two-day visit. He will have talks with his counterpart Klaus Iohannis, the prime minister Dacian Ciolos, the Senate speaker Calin Popescu Tariceanu and other Romanian officials. Talks will look at bilateral relations, Moldovas European agenda and the economic, political and social cooperation between Moldova and Romania. President Timofti will also hand special distinctions to president Iohannis, state secretary Raed Arafat and the popular Romanian actor Florin Piersic. On Friday, the Moldovan prime minister Pavel Filip said Romania would grant humanitarian aid to his country consisting in food for vulnerable people and heavy fuel oil to supplement Moldovas reserves in case its natural gas supply is disconnected.
Almost 100 persons have applied for asylum in Romania since the beginning of the year. According to the General Immigration Inspectorate, most of the asylum seekers are men aged between 18 and 34 who come from Pakistan, Syria and Iraq. The immigration police examine each individual case, approving or rejecting applications based on the documents in the application file and the information provided by asylum seekers during interviews with the Romanian authorities verified against information provided by their countries of origin. Around 2,600 beneficiaries of some form of international protection have been registered in Romania to date.
The Romanian Foreign Minister, Lazăr Comănescu, participated on Monday in Brussels in the meeting of the External Affairs Council. High on the agenda of talks were the political and economic situation of the Republic of Moldova and the ways the EU could support this ex-Soviet state with a majority Romanian-speaking population, the prospects of relations between the EU and Belarus and climate change. Another topic under discussion was the Syrian crisis, talks focusing on the results of the conference held in London on February 4, where discussions referred to the disastrous humanitarian situation in Syria, with focus on the concrete ways to help the Syrian refugees in the region as well as the population in the besieged areas.
Romanias Simona Halep is still number three in the WTA world ranking published on Monday, after Serena Williams and Angelique Kerber. However, Halep has to defend her title in Doha this week in order to keep her current ranking. Unless she wins the Doha tournament, she will be outranked by Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland and Garbine Muguruza of Spain. Three other Romanian players are in the WTA top 100: Irina Begu, who moved up one place to no. 33; Monica Niculescu, who retains her 37th place; and Alexandra Dulgheru, who is down two places to no. 56.
We would also like to thank the following listeners who sent us their views as part of this years celebration of World Radio Day on February 13th: Mitul Kansal, Clara Andrade, Riaz Ahmad Khan, Atul Kumar, Amari Amar, Abdelkader Khelil, Jahangir Alam Manto, Shivendu Paul, Muneer K P, Muhammad Arshad Qureshi, Shahzad Shabbir, Mikio Kohara, Mahesh Jain, Stephen Cooper, S B Sharma, Hans Verner Lollike, Denmark, Mohamed Elsayed Abd Elraheim, Mr. Najimuddin, the president of the International DX Radio Listeners Club in Murshidbabd, India and Mogire Machuki.
(Translation by Lacramioara Simion)
