October 30, 2014

Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news

Mihai Pelin, 30.10.2014, 12:00

Romania’s men’s national handball team in Bucharest Wednesday night succeeded a 36-24 win against the national team of Kossovo, in its debut Group C game counting towards the 2018 European Championship’s preliminaries. The return leg is scheduled in Pristina on Saturday. Also part of Group C is Italy, a team Romania is scheduled to be facing in June 2015. The winning team of the group stage is entitled to make headway into the next stage of the competition. It was the first time when a Romanian national team took on a team from Kossovo. We recall that Romania, one of Serbia’s neighboring countries, is one of the five EU member states which did not recognize the independence of the former Serbian province, with a predominantly Albanian-speaking population.

National Anti-Corruption Directorate prosecutors today have initiated search operations targeting offices at the National Audio Visual Council headquarters, the body regulating Romania’s media market. The prosecutors have seized documents signed by the Institution’s CEO Laura Georgescu, who has been facing charges of having instigated its employees to file bogus complaints, so that as many TV stations as possible can be imposed a fine on, by the National Audio Visual Council. The prosecutors’ search operations targeting the National Audio Visual Council have occurred as this week they also made a couple of arrests in some of Romania’s top-level corruption files.

Negotiations are underway in Ukraine between the incumbent President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc and Prime Minister Arsenyi Yatsekyuk’ s People’s Front, focusing on the structure of the future pro-Western ruling coalition. Winners with more than 20 per cent of the ballots in this past Sunday’s parliamentary elections, the two political groups could also have other parties join them in the governing coalition, that is those parties favoring the breakaway from Russia and gaining accession to the European Union. In a bid to give a fresh impetus to Ukraine’s allegedly pro-Western political groups, the European Union has recently announced it was ready to give its go-ahead for two fresh payments standing at 760 million Euro, by the end of the year. In another development, Russia, having nonetheless recognized the elections in Ukraine, announced it also backed and recognized the legislative and presidential elections due this coming weekend in the eastern separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.

Negotiations are underway in Brussels today between Ukraine and Russia, in a fresh attempt to get the two countries’ natural gas row sorted out, since this past Wednesday Russia and Ukraine reached no agreement on the matter. this past Wednesday. Mediating the talks is the European Commission, whose concern is growing that the ongoing crisis could affect the entire Europe’s gas supply for the coming winter. Around 15 per cent of the Union’s gas supply transits Ukraine, and November the 1st is the deadline Kiev should meet to pay its debts to Gazprom, which was a prerequisite the Russian conglomerate imposed, to resume delivery it put a halt on in June, as a result of Ukraine’ s pending debts. The European Union’s required volume of gas supply stands at 450 billion cubic meters each year. We recall the Union has to import 300 billion cubic meters, 125 billions of which from Russian conglomerate Gazprom.

More than 4,000 members of armed forces from 18 countries, among which Romania and the Republic of Moldova (a former Soviet republic, with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population) are taking part in an exercise in the region of Hohenfens in Germany. Militaries are on patrol, escort, guarding, planning and medical evacuation missions. The eventual aim of the exercise, to be held until November 12, is to improve the interoperability of partner states’ ground forces, as part of tactical operations conducted in a multinational environment. Taking part in the exercise are military from Albania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Armenia, Canada, Hungary, Republic of Moldova, Germany, Norway, Romania, the United States, Slovakia, Slovenia, Montenegro, The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Spain and Serbia.

The European Union has decided to invest 650 million Euro in more than 30 energy infrastructure projects, in most Baltic and Central European states. According to the European Commission, the projects are set to provide greater energy safety for the entire Europe, also curbing the isolation of several EU member states from the European Union’s energy network and at once contributing to the completion of Europe’s energy market. The largest part of the funding, accounting for almost 300 million Euro, is earmarked for a gas interconnectivity project, linking Poland to Lithuania. The financial aid for an electrical interconnection network between Estonia and Latvia stands at more than 100 million Euro.

The North Atlantic Alliance has stated that in the last 48 hours it has detected and tracked four groups of Russian military aircrafts on maneuver flights over the international airspace of the Baltic Sea, the North and the Black Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. NATO leadership has rated such an activity as a “wide scale” and an “unusual” one. Russian airplanes have not filed any flights plans. NATO statement also said the situation posed a potential risk for civilian aviation.

Palestinian leaden Mahmoud Abbas has hailed Sweden’s decision to officially recognize the Palestinian State. Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom has stated the decision was meant to contribute to a better future in a region marred by frozen negotiations, destruction and frustration. Stockholm announced it would recognize the Palestinian state earlier this month, being subject to criticism by Israel. The USA has rated Sweden’s decision as “premature” move.