March 19, 2014
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 19.03.2014, 20:30
Romanian President Traian Basescu has announced that at the spring European Council on Thursday and Friday he will plead for a clear date for the accession of the Republic of Moldova to the EU. The president made the statement on Wednesday, after meeting in Iasi, in north-eastern Romania, his Moldovan counterpart Nicolae Timofti. Basescu said that a clear European prospect will protect Moldova against threats such as Ukraine is currently facing and stood for the acceleration of accession procedures. Basescu and Timofti examined the geopolitical situation in the region, after Russia annexed the region of Crimea in southern Ukraine. Moscow’s actions were condemned by both the political class in Bucharest and by the pro-western Chisinau administration, which reasserted the support for Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. In another move, Romania’s president stated that he expects sanctions to be decided at the European Council against the Russian Federation. He went on saying that the EU must understand that signals coming from the Black Sea region in the future must be paid attention to.
Ukrainian soldiers on Wednesday left the navy’s headquarters in Sevastopol, which had been besieged by hundreds of pro-Russian militants and representatives of the Russian forces. The move was reported one day after the signing of the treaty on Crimea’s annexation to the Russian Federation. The treaty might be ratified by the end of the week by the two chambers of the Russian Parliament. The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon will go to Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and on Friday he will travel to Kiev for talks with Ukrainian leaders, in a bid to encourage the parties involved to settle the crisis in a peaceful way. The US and the EU are getting ready to apply new sanctions against Moscow. The NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has condemned Crimea’s annexation and urged Moscow and Kiev to restrain themselves. In another move, the acting president of the OSCE, Didier Burkhalter, has stated that the measures taken by Russia are an infringement of OSCE’s fundamental commitments and are incompatible with international law. He has underlined that Tuesday’s events should not mark the failure of diplomacy in its attempts to settle the crisis.
US might send troops to the Baltic countries using a rotation system, to safeguard the former Soviet republics, now worried about Crimea’s annexation to the Russian Federation. The statement was made on Wednesday in Vilnius by the US Vice-President Joe Biden, in a joint press conference with the president of Lithuania, Dalia Gribauskaie, and her Latvian counterpart Andris Berzins. According to Biden, Washington, is analyzing the possibility to boost military cooperation with the Baltic countries, including the deployment of US soldiers to participated in all the ground and sea exercises and drills. Currently, the US has no military base in the Baltic countries, where there are only 6 fighters under a NATO mission. On Tuesday, the US vice-president went to Warsaw, where he assured Poland of the US’s support and condemned Russia’s actions in Crimea.
Romanian Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean is on a two-day visit to Germany with a view to deepening Romanian-German cooperation, a press release of the Romanian Foreign Ministry says. The Romanian Foreign Minister will have meetings with his German counterpart, Frank Walter Steinmeier, with Bernd Fabritius, representative of the Transylvanian Saxons in the Bundestag and other German officials. The talks focus on European and international issues, laying emphasis on the situation in Ukraine and ways by which the EU will continue its moves for the diplomatic settlement of the crisis, in conjunction with international partners. The talks will also address the developments at institutional level following the election to the European Parliament due in May, the consolidation of the Economic and Monetary Union, cooperation as part of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region and the enlargement policy.
The President of the Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mihail Vlasov, was taken in police custody on Wednesday, for influence pedling. The decision of the Bucharest court of appeal is not final, and it can be apealled at the supreme court. During a sting operation Vlasov was caught red-handed while getting 200 thousand Euros, out of a total of 1 million in bribe to settle a trial at the Court of Arbitrage, where his daughter is firs-vice president. Vlasov, who is a laywer by trade, has been the president of the Chamber since 2007 and in 2008 was also a member of the Romanian parliament. Two years ago he was accused of corruption by some of his colleagues from local branches, who said Vlasov was using Chamber’s funds in a discretionary way.
The American guided missile destroyer USS Truxtun on Wednesday conducted a one-day military drill in the Black Sea jointly with the Romanian and Bulgarian naval forces. The US army has made it clear that it was a routine drill planned months before the Ukrainian crisis. Last week USS Truxtun carried out drills jointly with Romanian and Bulgarian ships a few hundred miles from Crimea, in the international waters in the South-West of the Black Sea. USS Truxtun became part of the US Navy in 2009 carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles on board.
Romania and Bulgaria will build a museum under the Black Sea called Heras, the Bulgarian media says today. The initiative is a joint project of Romanian and Bulgarian scientists aimed at investigating the cultural heritage on the Western shelf of the Black Sea, from the Danube to Cape Kaliakra. The project is designed to discover, preserve and promote the underwater archaeological heritage in that region. Tourists will thus be able to visit towns, harbors and wrecked ships.
