October 21, 2015 UPDATE
An update on domestic and international news
Newsroom, 21.10.2015, 12:15
The General Prosecutor’s Office in Bucharest announced that the former president of Romania, Ion Iliescu, was charged with crimes against humanity in the case of the so-called miners’ raids of June 1990, that ended a large-scale protest against the leftist power instated after the fall of the Communist dictatorship. Virgil Magureanu, the then head of the Romanian Intelligence Service was also indicted in the same case. The former defence minister, Victor Stanculescu, is a suspect in the case. Against the backdrop of violent incidents in Bucharest, which the army had managed to contain, Ion Iliescu claimed a coup d’etat was being staged by the far right and called on the population to defend the country’s democratic institutions. The miners from Jiu Valley raided the capital Bucharest, storming the University building, the headquarters of the opposition parties and of some independent newspapers. Following the miners’ raids, 4 people were officially reported dead, hundreds were wounded and more than one thousand people were arrested abusively. Last year the European Court of Human Rights issued a decision that imposes on Romania to continue to investigate the miners’ raids of June 1990.
Romania is stable from a macro-economic point of view, said Wednesday in Bucharest the president of the Budget Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, Viorel Stefan, after meeting with the IMF delegation. He pointed out that the only criticism made by the IMF experts refers to structural reforms and to a possible higher budget deficit. After Tuesday’s meeting with the President Klaus Iohannis the IMF representatives expressed reservations over approving a new flexible agreement, after the latest precautionary agreement expired last month, without a favorable final assessment. The IMF delegation also talked with the PM Victor Ponta.
An agreement on legal cooperation was signed Wednesday in Bucharest by the Romanian justice minister, Robert Cazanciuc and the foreign minister of the State of Qatar, Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Attiyah, who is on a visit to Romania. Under the agreement the two sides intend to have a more efficient exchange of legal information, experience and best practices between the two countries’ experts. To this end documentation visits, seminars and conferences will be organized and partnerships will be set up under the command of a joint committee made up of representatives of the two countries’ justice ministries. Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Attiyah also met with the PM Victor Ponta. During the talks the two officials reiterated the interest of their governments in consolidating the bilateral economic cooperation, especially in such fields as energy, IT, investment in transport infrastructure, tourism and agriculture.
Heads of state and government from the south east of the EU will meet Sunday in Brussels to talk about the so-called Balkan route of migration. The meeting was convened by the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker. Leaders from Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Greece, Hungary and Slovenia as well as from Serbia and Macedonia, two countries outside the EU, have been invited at the meeting. The meeting is aimed at working out a common strategy that should be implemented urgently, given the situation of some countries located on the migration route. Also attending the meeting will be representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, of European asylum and migration agencies as well as of the Frontex agency, which administers the EU’s external borders. According to the UN, of the 643 thousand migrants who entered the EU this year, more than 500 thousand used the Balkan route.
In 2014 Lithuania and Romania reported the lowest budget deficit expressed as a percentage of the GDP of all EU states, shows a second estimate made public on Wednesday by Eurostat. According to the data, Lithuania reported a deficit of 0.7% last year, while Romania of 1.4%, while Denmark reported a 1.5% deficit and Luxembourg 1.4%. Estonia and Germany reported a budget surplus. 14 EU members reported in 2014 a budget deficit higher than 3% of the GDP, among which Cyprus, Spain, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Croatia and Slovenia. The EU’s budget deficit stood at 3% of the GDP in 2014 while the deficit in the euro zone, also in 2014, was 6% of the GDP.
The pro-Russian socialist opposition in the Republic of Moldova, an ex-soviet country with a Romanian-speaking majority has tabled a no-confidence motion against the pro-European government. The communist deputies announced they would back the socialists move. The Liberal-Democratic Prime Minister Valeriu Strelet has accused the leftist opposition that by this move they are trying to destabilize the Republic and divert it from its European integration path.
The Romanian pair made up of Irina Begu/Monica Niculescu qualified on Wednesday to the semifinals of the doubles competition of the WTA tournament under way in Moscow, which has prizes up for grabs worth more than 700 thousand dollars. They defeated the pair Vera Duşevina (Russia)/ Anastasia Rodionova (Australia) 6-0, 6-2. The Romanian players, 2nd seeded, will play in the semifinals against the pair Andreja Klepac (Slovenia)/Katerina Siniakova (the Czech Republic), 3rd seeded. Begu and Niculescu won a WTA title together in 2012 in Hobart, Australia, and played in the final of Wuhan’s tournament last month.
