June 7, 2023

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 07.06.2023, 13:55

STRIKES – 10,000 teachers
have resumed classes, although over half of teachers in the system continue the
strike action, Education Minister Ligia Deca has said. Trade unions say the
authorities are mistaken, arguing some 87% of teachers and auxiliary staff are
currently on strike. In the meantime, representatives of pupils, parents and
trade unions on Tuesday met with Education Ministry officials, in an attempt to
find solutions. Minister Ligia Deca says there are no plans yet for
rescheduling exams or extending the school year. On the other hand, employees
in the public healthcare system have launched a work-in strike today, calling
for higher wages and the application of the salary law for all categories of
workers and the payment of base salaries stipulated in the wage grid. Health
workers also demand the authorities change the way bonuses are provided,
on-call work is remunerated and meal allowances are paid. The Labor Ministry
has published a draft emergency decree which raises the salaries of certain
categories of health workers to the maximum allowed by the law, including
nurses, orderlies and patient care assistants. The same provision will also
apply to social workers and employees in the defense, law enforcement and
national security sectors. According to the Labor Ministry, the measure will
not entail huge budget costs so as to impair the fiscal targets for 2023, and
will do away with salary inequities in the healthcare system, helping reward
workers in line with their training and seniority.

B9 – Russia remains the biggest
threat to European and Euro-Atlantic security, the president of Romania, Klaus
Iohannis, said on the sidelines of the Bucharest 9 Summit hosted by Bratislava.
The president called for the consolidation of national defense, underlining the
need to create a consistent, united, reliable and robust Forward Defense
structure on NATO’s eastern flank. Klaus Iohannis also argued that Romania will
continue to provide support for Ukraine as long as it is necessary, reasserting
Bucharest’s support for Kyiv’s Euro-Atlantic accession aspirations. Klaus
Iohannis and other B9 leaders firmly condemned Russia’s brutal, unjustified and
illegal war against Ukraine, calling on Moscow to unconditionally withdraw its
troops from Ukraine’s territory.

EXERCISE – The city of
Constanţa in eastern Romania is as of today hosting the VALHALA 23 exercise
organized by the Romanian Border Police Inspectorate. The exercise is designed
to test the capacity of the Border Police to manage high flows of refugees and
will comprise three phases. The first phase will be held onboard the 0201
Ştefan cel Mare ship and will consist in a simulation: Border Police crews
will detect watercraft carrying migrants and escort them to the port of
Constanţa. In the next phase, the migrants will disembark in the port and undergo
specific procedures. The last phase is scheduled to take place at the Coast
Guard headquarters and will consist of an epidemiological triage, body-searches,
identifying vulnerable people, border inspections, finger-printing and
registering. Each migrant will then undergo specific criminal procedures, a
second triage, will be given an opportunity to lodge asylum requests, will give
interviews and finally be given access to Romania’s territory or taken into
public custody, if necessary.

DAM – The European Union
will provide the necessary assistance to Ukraine after the partial destruction
of the Kakhovka dam, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said after a
telephone conversation with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs,
Josep Borrell. Both Kyiv and Moscow have denied responsibility for the attack.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that the Zaporizhzhia
Nuclear Power Plant, located upstream, has sufficient alternative cooling
systems to keep the plant safe and operational. In the meantime, mass
evacuations continued on Wednesday in southern Ukraine after the water
discharge flooded numerous settlements along the Dnieper. (VP)