July 27, 2016

Romania to hold EU's 6-month presidency by half a year earlier than initially scheduled.

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Newsroom, 27.07.2016, 12:00

EU – Romania will hold the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union for January-June 2019, by six months earlier than initially scheduled. The EU Council has taken this decision following Britain’s vote to leave the EU. British Premier Theresa May has said that her country will not take over the EU presidency next July as the London government will be busy negotiating the terms of its EU exit. Estonia will be the country to hold the EU presidency as of next July, instead of Britain.

SOLIDARITY – The Romanian Orthodox Church has said that the attack that took place in a church in northwestern France is a “symbolic attack on Europe’s Christian identity”, and has voiced solidarity with the French people. On Tuesday, two terrorists killed in a barbaric way an 84-year old priest during the religious service he was holding in the presence of several people. One of them was seriously injured in the attack. The perpetrators were killed by the police. ISIS has claimed the attack.

DRILL – Over July 27th and August 7th, 27 hundred soldiers from 10 countries are participating in a large-scale exercise in Cincu, central Romania. Five NATO members are to join the drill: Romania, the USA, Canada, Poland and Bulgaria. They will join five members of the Partnership for Peace: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the ex-soviet Romanian-speaking Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The opening ceremony will be attended by Romanian Defence Minister Mihnea Motoc.

VOTING – The Bucharest Government will submit to public debate, until mid-August, a draft emergency order on the revision of the postal voting law for Romanians abroad, PM Dacian Ciolos has announced today. We remind you that parliamentary elections will be held in Romania at the end of this year. The National Liberal Party has asked the Government to take several measures to facilitate voting abroad. One of these requests is to increase the number of polling stations abroad at least to the level of 2014. Also, applications by Romanian citizens living abroad to be included in the Election Registry should be submitted by made electronic post. According to the Electoral Authority, over 3,600 applications to be included in the Election Registry have been submitted by July 25, 2016. Over 3 million Romanians are currently working abroad legally, most of them in EU countries.

TENNIS – Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, WTA’s 5th seed, qualified on Wednesday morning to the round of sixteen of the tennis tournament in Montreal, Canada, after defeating Australian Daria Gavrilova no 54 WTA, 6-2, 6-3. Halep will next meet the winner of the game between Czech Karolina Pliskova and Italian Sara Errani.

FOOTBALL – Romania’s vice champion Steaua Bucharest was up against the Czech side Sparta Praga in an away match on Tuesday evening in the third qualifying round of the Champions League. The match ended in a draw with both teams scoring once. In the same stage of the competition, Romania’s champion Astra Giurgiu is today playing at home against FC Copenhagen.