May 19, 2017 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 19.05.2017, 20:08

REPUBLIC Igor Dodon, president of the ex-soviet, Romanian-speaking Republic of Moldova on Friday said upon a meeting with experts of the EU’s Venice Commission that he wanted that the Republic of Moldova turn from a parliamentary republic into a presidential one. Dodon, a Russian-speaking socialist, wants additional rights for the president, so that he could dismantle the Legislature and call snap elections. Out of the Parliament parties, only Dodon’s socialists have voiced support for these amendments. The other Parliament groups, which declared themselves pro-European, have criticised the initiative because such prerogatives for the president are far-fetched in a Parlimentary republic as the Republic of Moldova is.

INVITATION Romania has been invited by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to become a full member of the Nuclear Energy Agency as well as to be included in the agency’s data bank, a government communiqué has announced. Bucharest officially applied for becoming an NEA member in October 2016 and Romania’s nuclear programme was being evaluated by the Agency’s secretariat. Romania’s accession to the NEA will be completed through an exchange of letters in the presence of the OCDE secretary general Angel Gurria in June. Once the accession process is finalized, Romania will be joining the 31 NEA members, which are working together on developing the best practices and policies in the nuclear field. On Thursday, Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu said in Bucharest that Romania’s accession to the OCDE is a priority of his cabinet.

TALKS Romania remains the staunchest partner of the Republic of Moldova in the process of its European integration, the Romanian Minister delegate for European Affairs Ana Birchall said in Chisinau on Friday. She chaired jointly with the Moldovan Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Daniela Morari the fourth conference of the Romania – the Republic of Moldova Intergovernment Commission for European Integration. The commission included plenary sessions of working groups in fields like harmonisation of law, strengthening the rule of law, domestic affairs, regional development, agriculture, sanitary-veterniary policies and food safety. The following session of the aforementioned intergovernmental commission is due in Romania this autumn.

HEARING A businessman and former social-democratic MP in the Bucharest Parliament, Sebastian Ghita was being heard on Friday by a court in Belgrade in a closed-door session. According to Serbian news agency Tanjug, Ghita refused to be extradited to Romania invoking political persecution. The hearing was the first stage in his extradition process and comes a month after his capture in Belgrade. Under trial or penal prosecution in a few corruption files, the former Romanian MP fled to Serbia at the end of last year right before being heard by anti-corruption prosecutors and a day before having its Parliamentary imunity removed. He shortly became one of Romania’s most wanted offenders and had his name later added to the Interpol’s most wanted list.

TENNIS The world’s fourth tennis player Simona Halep of Romania on Friday qualified for the semifinals of the WTA tournament in Rome with 2.7 million dollars in prize money after a two-set win against Estonian Anett Kontaveit, 6-2, 6-4. Halep 25, who is seeded 6th at Foro Italico, will be playing her third semifinals in Rome after those in 2013 and 2015. Last week she won the tournament in Madrid for the second year in a row.