March 2, 2015
For a roundup of domestic and international events, click here.
Florentin Căpitănescu, 02.03.2015, 12:00
VOTE — Parliament is today voting on the appointment of MEP Eduard Hellvig at the helm of the Romanian Intelligence Service. Last week the Committee monitoring the Service has green-lighted his nomination by president Klaus Iohannis. A member of the Conservative Party since 2003 and of the Liberal Party since 2008, Hellvig was the Minister of Regional Development and Tourism in 2012 in Victor Ponta’s Social-Liberal Cabinet. This autumn he joined Klaus Iohannis’s staff. The position of Intelligence chief was left vacant on January 27, when George Cristian Maior tendered his resignation after eight years in office. Maior had previously harshly criticized the Constitutional Court’s decision to label as unconstitutional the law on cyber crime, which was part of a series of three pieces of legislation on national security.
VISIT — Minister Delegate for Romanians Abroad Angel Tilvar is today meeting with authorities in Catania, Italy. This is the last day in the three-day official visit of Minister Tilvar to southern Italy in order to address the situation of Romanians in the region. On Saturday and Sunday, Minister Tilvar met with representatives of the Romanian community here which totals over 40,000 people. Talks focused on certain labour issues the Romanians have been signalling in recent years, such as labour conflicts, labour abuses or unreported employment. Some 1 million Romanians are living in Italy, making for the largest community in the Diaspora.
HANDBALL — Romania’s handball champions HCM Baia Mare on Sunday outperformed IK Savehof of Sweden on home turf 34-24, as part of the Champions League Group 2. With this win HCM Baia Mare has climbed in third place in the group tables, after Larvik of Norway and Gyori ETO of Hungary. Playing in the same group are Viborg of Denmark and Metz of France. The first four teams will advance to the quarterfinals.
NATURAL GAS — A new EU-Ukraine-Russia summit is today taking place in Brussels focusing on natural gas supplies. The summit was suggested by the European Commission against the backdrop of rising fears regarding the potential cut-off of Russian gas imports to Ukraine, which would also seriously impact Europe’s gas supplies. Last week the Russian energy giant Gazprom started supplying natural gas to rebel-held regions in Eastern Ukraine, claiming that Ukraine had stopped supplying gas to these regions. The decision has rekindled the energy dispute between the two countries, with Russia repeatedly shutting off gas deliveries to Ukraine. Faced with Kiev’s refusal to pay in advance for its gas supply orders, Gazprom has announced it would again turn off the gas.
UNEMPLOYEMENT — Romania’s unemployment rate stood at 6.5% in January, down by 0.1% as compared to the previous month and by 0.5% as compared to the same level of January 2014, the National Institute for Statistics reports. The number of unemployed people therefore stands at some 607 thousand. The unemployment rate accounts for 6.8% of the male population, by nearly 0.7% more than women.
INCIDENT — 5 cars registered in Romania were set on fire on Sunday in a Rome suburb, known for hosting a large number of Romanians. The authorities are yet to establish whether this was an act of discrimination or not. The Romanian embassy has undertaken legal steps with the fire brigade and the Carabinieri command to access all official information regarding the cause of the incident and to identify the car owners. The Romanian Foreign Ministry has announced there are no victims, adding that this is not the first such incident reported in Rome, which is indicative that such actions might be motivated by xenophobic attitudes.
DEATH — The brazen killing of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov on Friday sent shockwaves across Russia and beyond. The chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the European Parliament Elmar Brok has told the press that Nemtsov was killed for his outspoken intention to make public a report on the presence of Russian troops in Eastern Ukraine. Previously, president Petro Poroshenko also said the Russian politician was murdered before he could bring to light evidence of Moscow’s involvement in the separatist conflict in Ukraine. Authorities in Washington want to conduct a reliable investigation to ascertain the circumstances of his death and his killers. According to Russian police, the assassination was planned to perfection. Tens of thousands of people on Sunday attended a march through Moscow to pay a last tribute to the politician.
THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROGRAMME — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday evening arrived in Washington. Netanyahu is here to denounce the international agreement on the Iranian nuclear programme. The 5+1 Group, comprising the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, Germany and Iran, is trying to get the deal signed by March 31. In exchange for guarantees linked to the civil and peaceful nature of its nuclear programme, Teheran would allegedly get its international sanctions lifted. Benjamin Netanyahu claims that the agreement would not prevent Iran from manufacturing a nuclear weapon. In another development, US Secretary of State John Kerry is in Switzerland where he is holding a new round of talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
ELECTIONS — The Reformist Party won Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Estonia, held against the growing security threats posed by Moscow. The annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and Russia’s ingressions in Eastern Ukraine are closely followed by the 1.3 million Estonians, of whom a quarter speak Russian. Russian military skirmishes on the Estonian borders with only a couple of days from the ballot have fuelled fears among the population regarding Moscow’s intention to destabilize former Soviet republics. The acting Prime Minister Ravvi Roivas jointly with its Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts, has called on NATO to increase its presence in the region.
