October 28th, 2013 UPDATE
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news
Bogdan Matei, 28.10.2013, 12:21
Lots drawn in London on Monday have pitted Romania against Ukraine in the first leg of group one, Euro-Africa, of the Davis Cup. The match is due over January 31st and February 2nd next year in Ukraine. This is the two sides’ second match in the Davis Cup after the one three years ago, when Romania clinched a three-one win. If Romania wins, it will meet in April Sweden, a team directly qualified for the second round.
On Tuesday Turkey will be inaugurating the first rail tunnel under the Bosphorus to connect Istanbul’s European and Asian sides. According to media sources, the inauguration will be attended by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and his counterparts from Japan and Romania, Shinzo Abe and Victor Ponta, respectively. The 3-billion euro project has been funded by the European Investment Bank and by Bank of Japan. The 13.6 kilometer underwater construction, including a 1.4 kilometer immersed tube tunnel, passes under Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait and should ease traffic in Istanbul, a city with 15 million people.
The European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn on Monday described the EU strategy for the Danube Region as a success story. According to him, the strategy includes 400 projects, whose value stands at 49 billion euros, and are supposed to foster economic growth and create fresh jobs. Also on Monday, Romania’s Prime Minister Victor Ponta announced that the governments of Romania and Bulgaria would convene for a joint session on cooperation in the Danube strategy in a fortnight. The strategy forum, underway in Bucharest, is being attended by officials from 14 countries, of which 9 are EU members. The EU strategy for the Danube region is a joint Romanian-Austrian initiative launched in April 2011.
Romanian MPs on Monday debated on the simple motion on the privatization of the state-owned railway freight division CFR — Marfa tabled by the two main opposition parties, the Liberal-Democrats and the populists PP-DD. The initiators have called on the ruling center-to-left coalition to launch an inquiry into what caused the failure of the previous privatization process. Considered a strategic objective by the government in Bucharest, the privatization of CFR- Marfa is among the pledges Romania made to the IMF and the EU as part of the agreements of 2011 and 2013. The executive and the IMF delegation, which is still in Bucharest, have agreed to review all the stages in the privatization of CFR Marfa to identify the causes of the previous failure.
Romanian trade unionists from the education field are picketing as of today until Wednesday the headquarters of the Government and the ruling Social Liberal Union. They are asking for the allotment of at least 6% of the GDP for education starting in 2014, for the modification of the Education Law and the passing of a new salary law in the education field. Teachers are also asking for the depoliticization of education, the re-thinking of school curricula and of the systems for the assessment of students.
Romania joins the NATO member states that will provide a state-of-the-art solution for the protection of European and American citizens against real threats such as ballistic missiles attacks. This was stated on Monday by the Romanian President Traian Basescu at the official ceremony marking the start of construction works on the anti-missile defense facility, which is part of the American anti-missile defense shield to be set up in Deveselu (in the south). The ceremony was attended by American and NATO officials and representatives of the foreign ministries of Poland and Turkey, states that are hosting or will host elements of the American anti-ballistic missile defense shield. Romania agreed to host this base on its territory, part of the American anti-missile shield in Europe, in September 2011. As many as 200 American soldiers and technicians will be stationed at the future military base.
