February 26, 2014 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 26.02.2014, 20:20
Romania has an unstable government, Romanian President Traian Basescu said on Wednesday after signing the decrees appointing 9 interim ministers, out of a total of 17 that make up the cabinet. All Liberal ministers and state secretaries presented their resignations after on Tuesday their party decided to break up with the Social Democrats and withdraw its members from all ministries and government agencies. Prime Minister Victor Ponta announced he will present the new Government in Parliament on March 4th. The future government will be made up of the Social Democratic Party, its smaller allies — the Conservative Party and the National Union for the Progress of Romania, and also the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania.
The Bucharest Tribunal has rejected the proposal of the anti-corruption prosecutors to place Dan Radu Rusanu, the head of the Financial Surveillance Authority, under preventive arrest for 29 days. Rusanu was detained for 24 hours, charged with setting a criminal group, complicity to abuse of office and aiding a felon. In the same case, the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) has officially requested to be given permission to start prosecuting former Finance Minister Daniel Chitoiu. The Anti-Corruption Directorate has accused Daniel Chitoiu of having initiated the process of adopting a new emergency ordinance, with the purpose of supporting the criminal group set up by Rusanu. The board of the Financial Surveillance Authority will be heard by the Senate’s budget-finance commission. In the last two months of 2013 , Dan Radu Rusanu cashed in salaries and bonuses worth 72 thousand euros.
Romanians trust the European institutions more than the domestic ones, according to the latest Eurobarometer made public by the European Commission’s office in Bucharest. The Eurobarometer, conducted last autumn, shows that only 11% of those interviewed trust the Romanian Parliament, while 49% of them trust the European Parliament. Also, Romanians are among the most optimistic Europeans.
Ukraine’s acting interior minister, Asen Avakov, has announced that the special riot police force, known as Berkut, blamed for the death of dozens of protesters, has been disbanded. The interim authorities are grappling with the dual threats of separatism and a looming debt default as they try to piece the former Soviet nation back together following the ousting of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. Pro-Western parties have continued negotiations to form a new government. The fact that the nationalist party Svoboda, alongside representatives of other xenophobic groups, might be part of the new government is worrying both neighboring Russia and the pro-Russian regions in eastern and southern Ukraine. According to the Radio Romania correspondent in Kiev, the Russian national flag was hoisted on the Parliament building in the autonomous region of Crimea, and the Russian community’s leaders said they would counteract any attempts, by nationalists in western Ukraine, to intervene in the peninsula.
NATO remains a sincere friend of Ukraine and will actively support the reforms in that country, said on Wednesday the Secretary General of the Alliance, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. He is attending in Brussels a summit of the NATO defense ministers. A NATO — Ukraine meeting will be held on Thursday. Rasmussen also said that the decision made at the summit held in Bucharest in 2008 remains in force, and Ukraine will be able to become a NATO member if its people wishes to.
The head of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service, Teodor Melescanu, has said the developments in Ukraine are worrying Bucharest because the country is home to a large Romanian community and instability there is likely to affect the entire region. The situation of the Romanian community in Ukraine, numbering about 1 and a half million people, is the main priority of the Romanian authorities, said Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean. He has reiterated his concern with the recent abrogation of the law that granted national minorities the right to use their native language and has called for a new law, which would guarantee the preservation of the Romanian identity. Moldovan President, Nicolae Timofti, has said in his turn that, for the time being, tensions in Ukraine are not a threat to the security of the capital city Chisinau, but the situation might change.
The International Security Assistance Force has declared Romanian corporal Ionut Adrian Vaduva hero of the day, because he discovered in due time a hand- made explosive device in Afghanistan, the US Embassy in Bucharest has announced. During a surveillance operation, the Romanian identified an improvised device and marked it accordingly. Subsequently, the device was detonated in a controlled way, thus ensuring the freedom of movement and the security of the allied troops. There are currently 1000 thousand Romanian soldiers in Afghanistan, which are to be withdrawn by the end of 2014.
