November 4, 2024 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 04.11.2024, 20:00
Visit. The Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu is on a working visit to France where he will meet with his counterpart, Michel Barnier. The visit started at the Euronaval Show, the largest and oldest exhibition in the world dedicated to the naval defense industry, which opened its doors on Monday morning, near the capital of the Hexagon. This year’s edition of the show, in which more than 500 exhibitors from all over the world are participating, is dedicated to naval security and strengthening combat capabilities, in a tense geopolitical context, in which the industry must offer quick solutions to navies involved in conflicts and in the protection of sensitive areas. Later, the prime minister met with representatives of the Romanian community in the Paris region. On this occasion, Ciolacu admitted that the policies of the administrations in Bucharest were responsible for the fact that millions of Romanians are now part of the diaspora and said that it’s the state’s obligation to create opportunities for those who have gone abroad to return home.
Floods. The Romanian Foreign Ministry is checking with the Romanian Embassy in Madrid and the Romanian Consulate in Castellon de la Plana, the information regarding four Romanian citizens who are reported missing following the recent weather phenomena in Spain. The rest of the individuals previously reported as missing are reported safe. The Valencia region, located in southeastern Spain, has been hit by devastating floods described by experts as “unprecedented,” which killed at least 217 people, including one Romanian. Dozens of others remain missing. The Spanish press also wrote about a Romanian family that lost their lives in the floods in La Torre, a district near Valencia. The ministry stated in a press release that the representatives of the diplomatic mission and the consulate office remain in constant contact with the Spanish authorities, and mobile consular teams have kept in contact with the Romanian citizens, depending on their requests.
Moldova. The incumbent president of the Republic of Moldova, the pro-European Maia Sandu, won a new term as head of state after the second round of the presidential elections held on Sunday. She got 929,964 votes, accounting for 55.33% of the total, and defeated the pro-Moscow candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo. Maia Sandu was supported in the capital Chisinau, where she was voted by over 57% of the electorate. She was also massively supported in the diaspora, where from she got 82.8% of the votes cast. A record number of over 327,000 Moldovan citizens voted at polling stations abroad. Almost 1.7 million voters participated in the second round of the presidential elections. The poll was declared valid, and the Central Electoral Commission has five days to present the results of the presidential poll to the Constitutional Court for validation.
Pensions. The Romanian Senate has adopted, as a decision-making body, the draft amendment to the Military Pensions Law, which provides for the recalculation and increase of military pensions. Senators who are members of the Defense, Public Order and National Security Committee gathered on Monday and gave a favorable opinion to the text of the law, after it had already passed the Chamber of Deputies with a large majority of votes. At the end of last month, approximately 5,000 reservists from all over the country protested in front of the Government headquarters, demanding higher state military pensions. Following the negotiations, their representatives received promises that the executive will support the adoption of a law in this regard.
Campaign. The campaigns for the presidential and parliamentary elections are being held simultaneously in Romania. The first round of the presidential election will be held on November 24, parliamentary elections will take place on December 1 and December 8 is the day for the second round of the presidential election. In the electoral campaign for the parliamentary elections, the parties, alliances or independents must convince the electorate to vote for them in order to win as many of the 466 seats of senators or deputies as possible. As regards presidential elections, 10 candidates proposed by political parties and 4 independents are competing to become president of the country.
Searches. 130 searches were carried out on Monday in Bucharest and in six counties in the south of Romania, in a case regarding non-compliance with the arms and ammunition regulations, qualified smuggling and drug trafficking. 60 people, including the gallery leader of a football club and a singer, were brought to the hearings. According to the Romanian Police and the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism, the investigations revealed that a foreign citizen of Turkish origin organized, together with several Romanians, a criminal group specialized in the procurement and sale of lethal firearms, without identification marks, made from components produced in Turkey. These weapons, known as “ghost weapons”, are illegal in all European states. The traffickers brought them into Romania by road, hidden in transport vehicles or in the components of cars and they were sold through intermediaries to violent clans or individuals. Since the initiation of the investigations, almost 50 such weapons have been confiscated.
