June 24, 2015

A roundup of local and international news

Newsroom, 24.06.2015, 12:00

Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis has nominated Mihai
Razvan Ungureanu as director of the Foreign Intelligence Service. A historian
by profession, the latter held that position over 2007-2012 when Traian Basescu
was president. Mihai Razvan Ungureanu was foreign minister between 2004 and
2007 and prime minister for three months in the first half of 2012. The post of
director of the Foreign Intelligence Service has been vacant since Teodor
Melescanu resigned last autumn. According to the Constitution, president
Iohannis has let the presidents of the two Parliament chambers know about the
nomination. The Parliament is going to make a decision in this respect.

Romanian deputies are today debating and voting on
the new draft Fiscal Code and the draft Fiscal Procedure Code, which are
supposed to take effect on January 1st 2016. The Chamber of Deputies is the
decision-making forum. The Draft Fiscal Code on Monday was unanimously passed
by the Budget-Finance Committee. One of the main measures of the new Code is
the slash of the VAT from 24 to 19% as of January 1st 2016. The new
Fiscal Code also provides for a cut in the special building tax, the scrapping
of the excise on fuels and of the 16% tax on dividend incomes as from January 1st
2016. Also today, the Law on Parliamentary Elections is going to be debated and
voted on in the Chamber of Deputies. Basically, the law provides for the return
to the proportional voting on lists and the maintenance of the 5% electoral
threshold, also establishing norms of the MPs’ representation per number of
citizens. The Chamber of Deputies is the decision-making forum in that case
too.

Romanian Defence Minister Mircea Dusa is attending
the NATO defence ministers’ meeting under way in Brussels until Thursday. High
on the agenda are the new security challenges, particularly regarding the
situation in Ukraine, after Washington has announced it will preventively
deploy heavy weaponry in Central and East European countries. On the sidelines
of the meeting, Mircea Dusa on Tuesday met Viorel Cibotaru, his counterpart of
the Republic of Moldova with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population. The
two ministers addressed Romanian-Moldovan military cooperation. Referring to
NATO’s aid package for the consolidation of Moldova’s defence capabilities,
Dusa said that it was an important political signal of NATO’s commitment to
supporting the Moldovan authorities’ efforts for consolidating national
security and defence. The aid programme, also benefiting Georgia and Jordan,
provides for the reforming and upgrading of the defence structures and aid for
the reevaluation of the military doctrine.

The visiting head of the British Secret Intelligence
Service Alex Younger on Tuesday was received by president Klaus Iohannis and
interim Prime Minister Gabriel Oprea. The talks focused on issues related to
regional security in the Black Sea area included, the efforts for fighting
terrorism and the strategic partnership between Romania and Great Britain. Alex
Younger also had talks with the director of the Romanian Intelligence Service,
Eduard Hellvig on the prospects of developing the partnership between the two
services, with special emphasis on fighting terrorism. A former military, Alex
Younger was named as head of the Secret Intelligence Service of Great Britain -
MI6 in November 2014.

In Moscow, the deputy prime minister of the Republic
of Moldova, Victor Osipov and Russian deputy prime minister, Dmitri Rogozin
today have talks on the economic crisis in Transdniestr, a pro-Russian
breakaway region in the East of Moldova and on the issue of Russian troops in
that region. The meeting takes place against the backdrop of the increasingly
tense situation in Transdniestr after Ukraine has denounced several treaties of
military cooperation with Russia and of a serious economic crisis in the
region. Since the beginning of June, Russian troops have conducted combat
exercises in Transdniestr. Subsequently, also in June, the Ukrainian
authorities announced they intended to deploy anti-aircraft missiles in Odessa,
at the border with Transdniestr. Transdniestr came out of Moldova’s authority
in 1992, in the wake of a conflict that left hundreds of dead.

In Brussels, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is
today meeting the president of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker,
the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi and the IMF director,
Christine Lagarde, says a press release of the Greek government quoted by FP.
On the occasion of a special summit of the Euro zone heads of state and
government, Greece on Monday spelled out more proposals on savings worth 8
billion Euros in 2015 and 2016, designed to disburse the foreign bailout aid.
The Euro zone finance ministers are today meeting to assess the Greek proposals
and are going to inform the EU heads of state and government about their
decision; the EU summit is due in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. If Greece
fails to reach an agreement with its lenders until June 30th when
the present financial assistance expires, it risks defaulting and leaving the
Euro zone.

The
winners of RRIs’ contest Govora Spa, a healing oasis, Beate Hansen and her
mother, Ursula Hansen of Germany arrived in Romania on Tuesday. They will stay
in the Palace Hotel in Govora Spa for 8 days, all inclusive and will undergo
spa treatment. Beate and Ursula Hansen will also visit the main cultural and
historical attractions in the region.