March 11, 2016

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 11.03.2016, 12:01

SURVEILLANCE Romania’s Higher Defense
Council gathers today in an extraordinary session to analyze the ruling of the
Constitutional Court, according to which the Romanian Intelligence Service can
no longer conduct surveillance relating to criminal cases. The decision has
raised worries among the prosecutors with the Anticorruption Directorate and
the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime, which have drawn attention
to the fact that thousands of investigations might be jeopardized. The Director
of the Romanian Intelligence Service, Eduard Hellvig, has warned that the Court’s
decision has national security implications. According to the head of the
Service, cases of espionage, betrayal, top level corruption, cross-border
organized crime and cyber-crime, which are serious threats to national
security, will be affected. The Higher Defense Council would endorse the
solution found by the government for this decision to not affect criminal cases
under investigation. The executive suggests the use of the infrastructure
belonging to the Intelligence Service, only provided no human intervention on
the Service’s part is allowed, and with the exclusive involvement of the
prosecutors and of the Judiciary Police. Once the law is endorsed by the Higher
Defense Council, the government will convene to pass it under an emergency ordinance.

EUROPEAN COAST GUARD The EU
interior ministers gathered in Brussels have announced they might soon reach an
agreement regarding the setting up of a European Border and Coast Guard. They have
also voiced worries that, by closing the Western Balkan route, immigrants might
look for alternative ways. At the meeting, the Italian Interior Minister
Angelino Alfano has stated that, once the Western Balkans route closed, his
country might be faced with a wave of refugees from Greece, through Albania and
the Adriatic. According to the latest official figures, there are some 40,000
refugees in Greece. On the other hand, Berlin and Athens believe that closing
the Balkan route is a unilateral measure, unable to solve the current crisis.
The two countries claim that only a coordinated plan with Turkey can provide a
sustainable solution.

REFUGEES NATO has deployed surface
raiders for the mission of combating
illegal migrant trafficking in the Aegean Sea area, the NATO Secretary
General Jens Stoltenberg has announced. According to him, the vessels deployed
around the Greek island of Lesbos might advance southwards in the coming days.
As it is close to the Turkish coast, the island of Lesbos is the main arrival
spot for the refugees coming from the Middle East. From there they head for
Athens on board ferries. Last year, some 850,000 migrants reached Europe along
that route. Adding to that have been some 130,000 refugees registered this
year.

INFLATION Annual inflation in Romania
registered a rate of minus 2.7% in February, down from minus 2.1% in January,
according to data published on Friday by the National Statistics Institute. For
the end of March, the National Bank of Romania estimates a inflation rate of
minus 3%. The Central Bank’s inflation target for 2016 is 2.5% +/- 1 percent. For
the end of this year, the National Bank of Romania has changed the inflation
forecast to 1.4%, 0.3% higher than the previous one.

TENNIS Romanian tennis
player Simona Halep, ranked 5th in the WTA classification, is tonight playing
against no.202, the American Vania King, in the second round of the
Indian Wells tournament. Halep has won the Indian Wells trophy
before and ended the year 2015 as the world second best tennis player, but she
started the year 2016 with two wins and four defeats in the WTA circuit. Also
today, Monica Niculescu, number 34 in the WTA ranking, will meet in the second round
the British Heather Watson, number 53. Another two Romanian tennis players,
Irina Begu and Alexandra Dulgheru, were eliminated in the first round of the
competition.

RUGBY Romania’s
national rugby team is in Iasi, north-eastern Romania, to play against the
German squad on Saturday, in a European Nations’ Cup match, the second most
prestigious European competition after the famous Six Nations Championship. In
the first three matches, the Romanian players defeated Portugal 39-14, Russia
30-nil and Spain 21-18. Next week they will take on Georgia, in Tbilisi. We
recall that last autumn Romania participated in the World Cup final tournament
in England, where, in the group stage, it defeated Canada and lost to France,
Ireland and Italy.