October 16, 2015 UPDATE

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Valentin Țigău, 16.10.2015, 12:30

Romania hails the latest upward trend in the EU – UN cooperation, a Romanian Foreign Ministry communiqué says. The
document recalls that on October 16th we’ll be marking 10 years
since the endorsement by the UN Security Council of a resolution forwarded by
Romania on ‘Cooperation between the UN and regional organisations in assuring
international peace and security.’ The resolution represented a priority of
Romania’s mandate as a non-permanent member of UN Security Council between
2004-2005 and was possible thanks to the expertise gained during its membership
in various regional and subregional organisations in Europe. International
developments and conflict situations in the past decade have confirmed the
viability and realism of that initiative, the communiqué went on to say.

Romanian president Klaus Iohannis on Friday voiced concern about the
latest events in the Republic of Moldova and made an appeal to the authorities
in Chisinau ‘to put the country back on the right track and maintain its pro-European
direction.’ Anti-corruption prosecutors in Chisinau on Thursday night ran
search operations at the offices of the Liberal-Democratic Party and the home
of its leader and the country’s former Prime Minister Vlad Filat, shortly after
he had been apprehended at the National Anti-corruption Centre for 72 hours.
Filat has been accused of corruption and influence peddling in a file on the
disappearance of one billion dollars from the country’s banking system.

The Romanian State Secretary for Foreign Investment and Public -
Private Partnership, Alexandru Nastase on October 14th received an
official delegation from Japan headed by Katsuhiko Eguchi, member of the House
of Councilors. On this occasion the Romanian official hailed the interest shown
by the Japanese delegation in developing investment projects in various fields
of mutual interest, such as energy, tourism, manufacture, pharmacy, IT&C,
agriculture, oil, gas and infrastructure.

Hungary is closing down its border with
Croatia on Friday night in an attempt to contain the refugee inflow, a month
after closing down its border with Serbia on September 15th. Over
170 thousand migrants have crossed into Hungary via Croatia since September 15th.
Responding to criticism for the measures taken, Hungary said it was meeting its
obligations to protect the EU’s external border.

17 out of the 28 EU member states reported negative inflation rates
in September 2015 as compared to the same month of 2014, and Romania had the 2nd
negative inflation rate in the EU, shows data published on Friday by
Eurostat. The annual inflation rate
both in the euro zone and the EU stood at minus 0.1% in September, after a 0.1%
growth in August. The countries reporting the highest annual inflation rate
were Malta (1.6%), Belgium, Portugal and Sweden (all reporting an annual price
rise of 0.9%). The lowest annual inflation rates were reported in Cyprus (minus
1.9%), Romania (minus 1.5%) and Spain (minus 1.1%). According to data provided
by the Romanian National Institute of Statistics the annual inflation rate
remained at a negative level in September, namely minus 1.7%, up from minus
1.9% reported in August. The monthly inflation rate was 0.26%.