November 24, 2015 UPDATE
An update on domestic and international news
Newsroom, 24.11.2015, 12:15
On Tuesday Bucharest saw a new meeting of the government meant to draft the 2016 budget that should be adopted by December 11, and subsequently forwarded to Parliament. The bill drafted by the former government provides for salary rises in the Healthcare and Education systems. Subsequently Parliament added a 10% increase for the rest of the state employees, and the law has been promulgated by President Klaus Iohannis. The Finance Ministry has now to assess if there are funds to support these salary increases so as not to exceed a budget deficit target of maximum 3% of the GDP.
The US and France are “united” in the fight against terror, said Tuesday in Washington the American president Barack Obama fresh from a meeting with his French counterpart François Hollande. In turn, president Hollande said the US and France agreed to intensify strikes in Syria and Iraq against the terrorist group the Islamic State. Also the two leaders agreed on the importance of closing Turkey’s borders so as to limit the movement of extremists in Europe. After the Paris attacks the French president is trying to persuade the world’s big powers to join forces in a “unique” international coalition against terrorism. On Monday in Paris, François Hollande agreed with British Prime Minister David Cameron to step up the offensive against the Islamic State, reiterating that his country was at war with this jihadist group. On Wednesday, the French president’s diplomatic effort to rally the support against the IS will continue in Paris, where he is meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and subsequently on Thursday in Moscow, when François Hollande is to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
The terror threat level for the Brussels Capital Region is being kept at the maximum of 4, the Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has announced, adding that the Brussels subway service and schools would reopen on Wednesday, Reuters reports. The level 4 alert, pointing to a serious and imminent threat, was imposed for the Brussels region on Saturday night. The level 3 terror alert for the rest of Belgium will remain in place until November 30. Brussels authorities have announced the arrest of 21 people in the Brussels region and Liege as part of a full-scale counter-terrorist operation. The list of arrested does not however include Salah Abdeslam, the key suspect in the November 13 attacks in Paris.
The President of the Republic of Moldova, Nicolae Timofti, resumes consultations with the parliamentary groups to designate the candidate for the prime minister position. The Constitutional Court decided that the Moldovan Parliament could be dissolved if it did not manage to validate a new government by the end of January 2016. The notification was filed by the Socialist opposition that asks for early elections on March 20. The former executive led by the Liberal Democrat Valeriu Streleţ was dismissed at the end of last month, through a no-confidence motion filed by the Socialist and Communist opposition, that was also backed by the Democrats. This led to the dismantling of the so-called pro-European alliance made up of the Liberal Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party. Despite many talks, the parties have not yet managed to reach a consensus over the formation of a new parliamentary majority.
NATO has requested an extraordinary emergency meeting after Turkey downed a Russian plane at the border with Syria on Tuesday. The attack will have dramatic consequences for the Russian- Turkish relations, warned the Russian President Vladimir Putin. Turkey claims the Russian plane violated its air space, ignoring repeated warnings, while Russia says the aircraft was flowing over the Syrian territory alone. Since the start of the Russian military intervention in Syria in support of president Bashar al-Assad’s regime, at the end of September, the incidents at the border between Turkey and Russia multiplied. Tension between the two countries has increased in the past days, after a series of Russian strikes that, according to Ankara, targeted Turkish-speaking regions in Syria.
