January 19, 2015 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

România Internațional, 19.01.2015, 19:48

Romanian Justice Minister Robert Cazanciuc met on Monday in Brussels with the first vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans and the Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Vera Jurova. According to a communiqué issued by the Justice Ministry in Bucharest, Cazanciuc presented the progress made by Romania under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, and stressed the national authorities’ determination to carry on the reform of the judiciary and the fight against corruption. Also, he reiterated Romanian Government’s wish to support the judiciary in implementing the new codes. In turn, European officials appreciated the reforms implemented by Romania. The efforts to fight corruption and the reform of the Romanian justice system have been monitored under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism since 2006.

Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu attended in Brussels on Monday the proceedings of the Foreign Affairs Council, alongside his EU counterparts. At the meeting he stressed the need for a strategic approach in the relation with Russia, and pleaded for maintaining the sanctions against that country. He also highlighted the impact of Russia’s actions in Ukraine on the security situation in the region and the importance of a good coordination with NATO and the US. The EU foreign ministers also discussed means of fighting terrorism, against the background of the recent attacks in France, the Middle East peace process and climate change.

For 26 years now, Romania’s population has been dropping, announced on Monday the Vladimir Trebici” Institute for Democratic Research, of the Romanian Academy. According to the director of the institute, Vasile Ghetau, Romania’s population is now less than 20 million. In 1990, right after the fall of the communist regime, Romania’s population stood at 23.2 million. He has also said that this drop is the biggest threat to the sustainability of the public pension system.

A new Week of Prayer for Christian Unity started in Bucharest on Monday. According to a communiqué issued by the Patriarchy of the Romanian Orthodox Church, every year, over the third week of January, priests and believers belonging to various Christian churches pray together, each evening in a different place of worship. In Bucharest, the week of prayer starts at the Orthodox Patriarchy, and continues with the reformed, Calvinist, Greek-Catholic, Lutheran and Armenian churches, to end on January 26th at the Roman Catholic church.

Kiev is willing to cooperate with Moscow in order to ensure the cease fire in eastern Ukraine, said on Monday the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin. On Sunday, the Kremlin stated that Kiev authorities had rejected a plan proposed by the Russian president Vladimir Putin, regarding the pull out of heavy artillery from the front line. On the ground, the Ukrainian army and the Pro-Russian separatists carry on violent fighting among the ruins of the Donetsk airport. Since April 2014, 4 thousand 8 hundred people, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in clashes between the Ukrainian army and separatists.

The US President Barack Obama on Tuesday in his state of the nation speech will propose several domestic policy projects, among which increasing taxes for the rich, and fiscal incentives for the middle class. Obama has already made public some of the themes of his speech during visits to various cities in the US and on social networks. According to American political analysts, the proposals shape up the economic agenda for the next presidential election campaign. President Obama plans to use the last two years of his term to enhance federal authority, analysts say.

This week the city of Melbourneis hosting the Australian Open, which has among the participants the third best player in the world, Romanian Simona Halep. On Monday Simona qualified for the second round, after beating Italian Karin Knapp in two sets 6-3, 6-2. Another Romanian player, Irina Begu, has obtained a surprising result in this tournament: a three-set win against ninth-seeded Angelique Kerber of Germany.