November 21, 2014, UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

România Internațional, 21.11.2014, 20:15

The Constitutional Court of Romania on Friday validated the election of Klaus Iohannis as the fourth president of the country since the 1989 Revolution. The incumbent Mayor of Sibiu will take over the office after December the 21st, when Traian Basescu’s term in office comes to an end. The validation took place after the Central Electoral Bureau sent to the Constitutional Court the results of the vote in the runoff held on November the 16th. Klaus Iohannis, the candidate of the Christian Liberal Alliance, won 54.43% of the votes, while his challenger Victor Ponta, representing the ruling left-wing coalition, won 45.56%. The turnout was 64.10%. In the polling stations abroad, Klaus Iohannis won some 90% of the nearly 380 thousand votes.

Former Central and East European heads of state, who paid a visit to Bucharest on Thursday and Friday, stated the European Parliament and Commission should take into consideration the victims of communism as an issue to be introduced in the portfolio of one of the European Commissioners. The final declaration of the international conference titled “ 25 years after the collapse of communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe: looking back, looking forward” reads that the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and national governments have been repeatedly asked to condemn the communist ideology and the crimes of communism, but no official responses have been issued yet. The conference in Bucharest devoted to the celebration of 25 years since the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, was attended, among others, by the former president of Romania between 1996-2000, Emil Constantinescu, the former Polish President Lech Walesa and former Ukrainian president Viktor Iuscenko. Also attending were several western personalities who marked the post-communist period, as well as over 400 young people from the former communist countries.

Romanian President Traian Basescu on Friday conveyed a message of condolence following the crash of a Puma Socat military helicopter in Sibiu, central Romania. 8 soldiers were killed and another 2 wounded. These are sad times for the Romanian Army, for the Romanian people and for me personally” the President said. According to the National Defense Ministry, the helicopter was on mission and was about to take part in a military exercise, alongside US soldiers. The weather was bad and visibility poor, and apparently that was the cause of the accident. Similar incidents involving this type of aircraft belonging to the Romanian Defense Ministry have been reported in the past as well.

Romania is taking part, for three days, in the largest ever multinational cyber defence exercise organised by NATO in Estonia. The exercise is intended to test the rapid sharing of information and the capacity of the participating countries to coordinate collective cyber defence efforts. NATO officials warn that “the cyber threat is not just a potential threat, it is daily reality.” Ambassador Sorin Ducaru, the NATO Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges told the Romanian public radio station that Romanian experts have played a special part in putting together the scenario and virtual environment for this complex exercise.

On Friday Ukraine marked a year since the start of the pro-European protests in Kiev, dubbed “the Revolution of Dignity,” which forced the former president Viktor Yanukovyc and his team to leave the country. On November the 21st, 2013, thousands of people gathered in Kiev’s Independence Square to protest the president’s refusing to sign the EU Association Agreement in Vilnius, and to call for Ukraine’s European accession efforts to be continued. According to sociologists, the pro-European protest spread to include some 20% of the country’s population. After the fall of president Viktor Yanukovyc, the EU signed the association agreement with Ukraine.

The Gaudeamus International Book Fair organised by Radio Romania carries on in Bucharest. Taking part in this 21st edition of the fair are more than 300 Romanian and foreign publishers, printing houses, education institutions and cultural institutes, presenting books for all age categories and from all fields. This year’s guest of honour is Russia.