February 2, 2023 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 02.02.2023, 19:56

Visit — The Romanian President Klaus Iohannis was received, on Thursday, by his Azeri counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, in Baku. The Romanian president is paying a two-day official visit to Azerbaijan. The Romanian delegation includes the Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu, the Energy Minister Virgil Popescu, the director of the Romanian Intelligence Service – SRI, Eduard Hellvig and other presidential advisers. The two presidents discussed the development of bilateral cooperation in areas such as energy, transport, trade, investments, digitization, agriculture, education and culture. Also, the two assessed the stage of implementation of regional interconnection projects, such as the submarine transmission cable for electricity, and they also addressed the initiation of similar projects in the digital field. On Friday, the two national companies, Romgaz and Socar, will sign a new contract for the delivery of natural gas for the period April 1, 2023 and April 1, 2024. Thus, according to Ilham Aliyev, all opportunities in Romania will be used for the export of Azeri gas to other European markets. Also on Friday, Klaus Iohannis will open, together with Ilham Aliyev, the Ministerial Meeting of the Consultative Council of the Southern Gas Corridor, which will be attended by the European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson.

Sofia — Ensuring the security of the EUs external borders and the effective management of the migration phenomenon can only be achieved through a coordinated effort at the national and European level, the Romanian Interior Minister, Lucian Bode, said on Thursday in Sofia. He added that Romania is a security provider at the European level, and the protection of the EUs external borders is a priority. Lucian Bode participated in the ministerial conference “Efficient management of the external borders of the EU”. On the sidelines of the meeting, the Romanian official had a bilateral meeting with his Bulgarian counterpart, Ivan Demerdzhiev. On this occasion, the two deepened the bilateral consultations started on the occasion of the JHA informal Council in Stockholm, which took place last week, regarding the acceleration of the accession process of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area. We remind you that on December 8, 2022, at the JHA council in Brussels, Romania was not admitted to the free travel area due to the opposition of Austria and the Netherlands. The Austrians voted against, and the Dutch decided to accept Romanias accession, but not Bulgarias, the two countries being analyzed on a common file.

ICR — The Romanian Cultural Institute allocates 1 million lei (about 200 thousand Euros) this year for the translation of Romanian books abroad, through two funding programs. These are addressed to publishers from outside Romania and aim to facilitate access to Romanian culture, by supporting translations from Romanian authors and publications dedicated to Romanian culture and civilization. The files can be submitted, for the first time, exclusively online, by email, until March 8. They will be evaluated by a commission of independent experts.

EU — The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, announced in Kyiv that the EU countries would train another 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers, thus doubling the size of an ongoing program. He made this statement during a conversation with the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denis Shmihal. Some of the soldiers will be prepared to use equipment including modern German tanks Leopard 2. Josep Borrell also said that Brussels will make available to Kyiv 25 million Euros to support the demining efforts of the countrys territory. “The protection of civilians and their livelihoods is a priority,” he underlined. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, and important European commissioners arrived in Kyiv on Thursday, to hold a joint meeting with the Ukrainian Government, on the eve of the EU – Ukraine summit due on February 3. The former Soviet republic applied to join the EU in February 2022, being granted the candidate country status in June 2022.

OMV – The largest energy company in southeastern Europe – OMV Petrom – recorded, last year, a net profit of over 10 billion lei (over 2 billion Euros), by 260% higher than the previous year. According to the data of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, the companys contribution to the state budget, through taxes and dividends, reached a record level of 20 billion lei (about 4 billion Euros). The company plans investments of 6 billion lei (about 1.2 billion Euros), with the Neptun Deep project in the Black Sea at the center of the strategy. OMV Petrom has recently announced that it will not pay the solidarity tax of 60% on oil companies profits, imposed by the Bucharest Government, because, the group claims, it does not fall within its application criteria. The European Commission found the company is right, but the National Agency for Fiscal Administration – ANAF announced that it will continue the checks and discussions with the European Commission in order to clarify the situation. (LS)