July 5, 2017 UPDATE

Romanias President Klaus Iohannis will attend a summit of the Three Seas Initiative on Thursday in Warsaw/The relocation to Bucharest of the European Medicines Agency continues to be a major objective of the Bucharest government, says PM Mihai Tudose

Bogdan Matei, 05.07.2017, 19:50

SUMMIT – On Thursday, Romanias president Klaus Iohannis is attending a summit of the Three Seas Initiative, namely the Baltic Sea, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea, hosted by Warsaw. The heads of state and representatives from 11 other Central and Eastern European countries, namely Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary, are taking part. The US president Donald Trump will also attend the summit as a special guest. The purpose of the Initiative is to provide political support for the cooperation and interconnection between the economies of the countries in the geographical area bordered by the three seas in fields such as energy, transport, telecommunications and environmental protection.

EMA – Relocating to Bucharest the European Medicines Agency, EMA, continues to be a major objective of the Bucharest government, says PM Mihai Tudose, in a press release issued by the cabinet on Wednesday. According to the aforementioned source, the prime minister called on the Health Ministry and the National Medicines Agency, in their capacity as institutions with responsibilities in preparing Romanias candidacy file for relocating the EMA to Bucharest, to finalise this file, so as to observe the deadline set at European level, namely July 31. Last month, after the summer European Council in Brussels, President Klaus Iohannis said, in his turn, that the new cabinet should secure an agreement on relocating the EMA, after Brexit, from Great Britain to Romania. Other countries willing to host EMA include France, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary and Bulgaria, which have already forwarded their offers.

BACCALAUREATE – 71.4 % of the Romanian high-school graduates passed this years first session of the baccalaureate exam, the education minister Liviu Pop announced on Wednesday. He recalled that last year only 66.7% of the high-school students passed the exam. Pop also said less than 10 high schools in Romania reported that no candidate passed the exam. The counties with the highest performance rates are Sibiu (in the centre), Bacau, Iasi (both in the north-east) and Cluj in the west, with over 80%, whereas the lowest rates were registered in Ilfov – 42% and Giurgiu – 50% (both in the south). Raluca Turcan, first vice-president of the National Liberal Party, in opposition, has noted that this year 70,000 high-school pupils add to other 800,000 high school pupils who do not hold a diploma either because they failed to pass the baccalaureate exam or they dropped out high-school. Turcan says the results of the baccalaureate exam show the authorities must take urgent measures to support the education system.

PUBLIC MEDIA SERVICES – The Constitutional Court of Romania says it will discuss, on the 12th of July, a complaint by the main opposition party, the National Liberal Party, in respect of an amendment to the law regulating the activity of the public radio and television services. The National Liberal Party says the law irremediably compromises the statutes, organization and activity of these two autonomous public services of national interest. The Liberals also say the law does not clarify the legal status of the two services given the change in the way they are funded following the elimination of a number of duties at the beginning of the year. They moreover argue that the new law eliminates the states constitutional obligation to consolidate ties with the Romanians living abroad from an identity, ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious point of view following the repeal of an article providing funding for the production and broadcast of programmes for the Diaspora. This, in the Liberals opinion, will lead to a blocking of the activity of Radio Romania International and TVR International. The law in question was adopted on the 20th of June by the Senate, the decision-making body in this case.

WTO – Romania will continue to promote the multilateral trading system, the elimination of barriers hampering free trade and the elimination of discriminatory treatment in international commerce, Romanian foreign minister Teodor Melescanu said in Bucharest on Wednesday, in a meeting with the Director General of the World Trade Organisation, Ricardo Azevedo. Melescanu assured the WTO official of Romanias support during his term in office as Director General of the organization. In turn, Azevedo hailed the evolution of the Romanian economy and encouraged the promotion of investment, particularly in education and infrastructure, as well as fiscal stability, which can be instrumental in making the Romanian market attractive for investors, and in reducing regional gaps. Set up in 1995 and having Romania among its founding members, WTO is an international institution which establishes international trading regulations.

VISIT – The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Liviu Dragnea, will pay a visit to Israel next week, at the invitation of the Speaker of the Knesset, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein. According to a memorandum endorsed by the Standing Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday, Dragnea will travel to Israel over July 11-13, and the delegation accompanying him will be made up of five other deputies and a senator. According to a communiqué issued by the Chamber of Deputies, the visit brings into the spotlight the common wish to develop bilateral relations between the two countries and to boost dialogue at parliamentary level.

G20 – The G20 summit taking place on Friday and Saturday in Hamburg may turn out to be one of the most conflicting since the creation of this forum, with bilateral tensions being fed by the international developments and essential disagreements with the US president Donald Trump, the France Presse news agency notes. According to the agency, the talks between Trump and the Chinese president Xi Jinping are set to be difficult following the launch of North Koreas first intercontinental missile on Tuesday, seen as a provocation to America on its national day. China, which is North Koreas main ally, said earlier that its relationship with the US had been affected by “some negative factors, after a US war ship sailed close to an island claimed by China. Hamburg will also host the first meeting between Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, with the latter expected to propose the normalisation of relations between the two countries, relationships that have been strongly affected by the crisis in Ukraine, the war in Syria and accusations of Russias interference in the American elections. The France Presse also notes that the relations between Germany and Turkey have continued to deteriorate after a failed coup against president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July last year. Turkey became even more vexed with Germany when the latter rejected a request from Ankara that Erdogan be allowed to address members of the ethnic Turkish community living in Germany on the sidelines of the G20 summit.