October 26, 2015 UPDATE

For a roundup of domestic and international events, click here.

Newsroom, 26.10.2015, 12:15

ACCIDENT – Romanias president Klaus Iohannis on Monday announced he had advised Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Gabriel Oprea to resign. The announcement follows after on week ago a police officer died in an accident while leading the official motorcade escorting Oprea. Also on Monday, Gabriel Oprea said was travelling on official business. He emphasised that any speculations that he was using an official escort without legal grounds were completely unfounded. After the accident, the Prosecutors Office has started an investigation for involuntary manslaughter. On Sunday, almost 1,000 people took part in a rally in Bucharest to express their solidarity with the policemans family. They called for the resignation of minister Gabriel Oprea, as did a number of NGOs and the Liberal opposition, who are planning to call for a vote of no-confidence in this case.

CORRUPTION – Involvement in criminal activity and money laundering are the latest charges anti-corruption prosecutors have brought against the suspended mayor of Bucharest Sorin Oprescu on Monday. Oprescu was placed under pre-trial arrest on September 7. Prosecutors claim Oprescu received 25,000 euros in bribes, getting involved in the activity of an organized crime group in the local administration, claiming a portion of the profits of companies bidding for public contracts.

POSTAL VOTING – According to political sources in Bucharest, the Chamber of Deputies will debate the bill on postal voting on Wednesday. A week ago, the Senate passed the proposal, backed both by the Social-Democratic Party in the ruling coalition and the National Liberal Party in opposition, with a large majority. The Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe have criticised the bill. Senate Speaker Calin Popescu-Tariceanu says the bill does not comply with the article in the Constitution according to which the vote is universal, equal, direct and secret, and thus can be appealed at the Constitutional Court. The postal voting system is to be used in the parliamentary, presidential and European elections and only applies to voters who reside or live abroad. Several months before elections, voters must enlist with the Election Registry Authority. Under the bill, a postal voting bureau will be made available for every 10,000 voters.

INVESTMENT – Romania must improve its business environment to reduce companies hidden costs and one important means of achieving this is by improving its public administration, said the head of the European Commission Representation in Romania Angela Filote at a foreign investors forum in Bucharest. In recent years, Romania has grown faster than other EU states, but this growth must be backed by local and foreign direct investment, as well as investment in high added value areas such as research and innovation, Filote also said. Romania must win back its place on the map of foreign investors and its good current economic situation should be taken into account, said the state secretary in the Department for Foreign Investment and Private-Public Partnership, Alexandru Nastase. He explained that direct foreign investment in Romania amounted to 2.4 billion euros in the first eight months of the year, which shows an increase compared with 2014. The Foreign Investors Summit in Bucharest brings together experts from fields such as finance, IT and communications, real estate and the auto industry and comes to an end on Thursday.

STATISTIC – Some 90,000 unemployed managed to get a job between April and July in Romania, reads a quarterly analysis of unemployment rates published by the Eurostat. Of the 22 million unemployed reported at the end of the first quarter in Europe, over 4 million managed to find a job in the second quarter, while another 4 million stopped looking for a job, becoming inactive.

TENNIS – Romanian tennis player WTA no. 2 Simona Halep is playing Maria Sharapova of Russia on Tuesday in the second match at the WTA Finals in Singapore. On Sunday, in the first match, Halep outperformed Flavia Pennetta of Italy 6-0, 6-3, while Sharapova won in three sets, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 against Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland. In the WTA Race standing published on Monday, Halep has a 4,000-point lead over no.1 player Serena Williams of the United States, and a 1,200-point lead over Garbine Muguruza of Spain, WTA 3rd ranked. Another 4 Romanian players are in the WTA Top 100. Irina Begu went down two places to 31st place, Monica Niculescu is one place lower than last week in 46th place, Alexandra Dulgheru went up two spots to 56th place, while Andreea Mitu has gone down six spots to 99th place.

EXERCISE – Until November 6th, more than 1,800 Romanian military and 300 US military are taking part in the Justice Sword exercise at the Smardan shooting range near Galati, in southeastern Romania. The exercise provides training to achieve harmonisation of tactics and procedures and improve confidence in equipment and group cohesion. Another exercise, called Dragoon Crossing Romania, is coming to an end today in Arad County, in the west. 250 Romanian and 170 US military have taken part in this exercise, whose aim is to demonstrate the interoperability between the two armies and develop abilities of planning, leadership and execution as part of water-crossing operations.