May 20, 2014

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România Internațional, 20.05.2014, 12:14

US Vice President Joe Biden as of today is on a two-day visit to Romania, against the backdrop of the ongoing Ukrainian crisis. Biden will be holding talks with Romania’s president Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Victor Ponta. The high-ranking US official will be reiterating the staunch support the USA will offer to Romania and its other eastern European NATO allies. Also high on the talks’ agenda wil be the necessity to strengthen economic relations with Romania, Bucharest’s role in Europe’s energy security, as well as the rue of law and the fight against corruption. The Washington official will also be holding meeting with Romanian and American military who are taking part in joint exercises. Joe Biden’s visit to Bucharest has occurred in the wake of the visit NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Deputy CIA head Avril Haines have paid to Bucharest last week. Also expected in Romania in the forthcoming period is the head of the Pentagon Chuck Hagel.

The President of the Czech Republic Milos Zeman today is on an official visit to Romania, where he will be holding talks with President Traian Basescu. Zeman will be taking part in an economic forum, organized by the Central Bank. Over 150 representatives of Czech and Romanian firms from the banking, IT, energy, logistics and car manufacturing sectors, interested in doing business in Romania, announced their participation to the Forum. In recent years, the bilateral commercial exchange stood at a record high of over 2 billion Euro, mainly supported by investments in renewable energy, transport and agriculture.

One hundred years are commemorated today, since the great Romanian political personality Corneliu Coposu was born on May 20, 1914. Coposu died in 1995, aged 81. After the collapse of the communist regime n Romania, Coposu had a significant contribution to the revival of the National Peasant Party, which jointly with the National Liberal party, was the historical party on the Romanian political scene. Ever since the early 1990s, Coposu, a staunch supporter of the King, had been fighting for removing the former communist officials from the new state structures and for Romania gaining admission to the institutions of the Western world. For his entire political activity and for the suffering he had been going through for nearly two decades in communist prisons, in 1995 Coposu was awarded the distinction of Officer of the Legion of Honor, the highest French distinction.

Four judges of the Bucharest Tribunal, currently facing corruption charges, today will be brought before the Court of Appeal, with the suggestion of being remanded in custody. The four have been kept in custody as the Higher Council of Magistracy officially gave its consent for that. The four have been accused of taking, directly or through intermediaries, money and other dues, to favour judicial liquidators and administrators in some of the insolvency files. According to anti-corruption prosecutors, the sums of money the four received each month ranged from 10,000 lei ( 2,250 Euro) to 15,000 lei ( 3,400 Euro).

Romania will no longer sign a loan agreement with the IMF, the European Commission and the World Bank after 2015, Romania’s budget minister delegate Liviu Voinea has announced. Voinea also stated that Romania would thus be giving a signal it now has a sound economy. We recall Bucharest signed a precautionary loan agreement with the international institutions, accounting for 4 billion Euro. In the past four years, Romanian has successfully signed two other loan agreements with the IMF, the EU and the World Bank, standing at 20 billion and 5 billion euros, respectively.

Romania’s Anti-Corruption Directorate will be giving its support to authorities in the Republic of Moldova (a former Soviet Republic, with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population) in its fight against corruption, Romania’s National Anti-Corruption Directorate’s Chief Prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi, during her visit to Chisinau on Monday. Kovesi also said Romania and the Republic of Moldova reported significant success in joint actions. The statements were made at the meeting the National Anti-corruption Directorate’s Chief Prosecutor had with Republic of Moldova’s interior minister Dorin Decean.

Romanian weather forecast services have issued orange and yellow code warnings for flooding for some of river Danube’s riparian areas, in place until May 26. Specialists estimate that flood levels along the Danube, caused by the eastern Balkans’ heavy downpours might reach Romania around May 25. Flood levels have already been broken at five hydrological stations, and the authorities have set up a regional Headquarters for Emergency Situations. Speed restrictions for vessels have been put in place for the Danube, below waves propagation level, so that pressure in the dams can be avoided. The weather is getting warmer in Romania, yet it is slightly changing. The highs of the day range from 20 to 27 degrees Celsius. The noon reading in Bucharest stood at 25 degrees.

At least 47 people died, more than 1.6 million people were worst-hit by flooding, while estimated damages stand at more than 10 billion Euro, according to the most recent toll made public by officials in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, two countries that have been worst-hit by the most serious flooding in the last century. In Serbia today, the authorities are expecting a new maximum flood level for the river Sava, one of the Danube’s tributaries. There are also fears that river Sava bursting its banks will affect new localities, but also a power plant, which provides half of the national electricity consumption. In Bosnia, authorities have announced the aftermath of the flooding can be compared to that of the war between 1992 and 1995. At present, a quarter of the country’s four million people have been deprived of drinkable water, while more than 100 thousand houses have been destroyed. Concurrently with rescue teams’ efforts, a growing number of countries, among which Romania, have offered their support for the people in the two countries.