December 19, 2015 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 19.12.2015, 12:15

Romania’s state and social
security budget law has been promulgated by president Klaus Iohannis. The
fields that will get the highest amounts next year are education, research,
health and national security. The 5% pension growth was also provided for in the
budget. The budget is based on a deficit of 3% of the GDP and an economic
growth rate of 4%. Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos has admitted that the
government took into consideration the draft budget sketched by the previous
government and has given assurances that the money will be managed in a
transparent, effective and cautious manner.

The central and east-European
countries that will not accept refugees in keeping with the mandatory quotas
could face legal actions and thus problems might occur with regard to the EU’s
open borders, warns the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in an
interview carried by the ‘Der Spiegel’ magazine on Saturday. He also warns
that, in order for the plan of relocation of 160,000 refugees among the EU
countries to be applied, the EU may resort to judicial proceedings. A few days
ago, the Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann too stated that the central and
east-European countries that did not accept refugees from outside the EU,
according to the established relocation system, might get less EU funding. At
the winter European Council in Brussels, the Romanian Prime Minister Dacian
Ciolos stated that, although Romania stands by the other EU member states, it
will not take into consideration the
mandatory quotas unless the EU proves it can effectively control the migration
flow. The International Organization for Migration announced on Friday that over 990,000 refugees and migrants had
entered Europe since the beginning of 2015.

The Timisoara
Society, which has recently joined the NGO called Platform of European
Memory and Conscience will call on Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis to
request, before the country’s Higher Defense Council, the declassification of
documents and materials concerning the 1989 anti-Communist Revolution. The
president of the organization, Florian Mihalcea, claims there are still many
recordings, photos and other documents that are kept secret. The Platform of
European Memory and Conscience is an international NGO set up in 2011,
which brings together 51 public and private institutions and organizations from
18 countries, active in research, fact-finding, awareness raising and citizen
education on totalitarian regimes in Europe in the 20th century. Events
commemorating the heroes of the 1989 anti-Communist Revolution continue in
Timisoara, in western Romania. 26 years ago, that was the place where, on
December 19th, dozens of thousands of people took to the streets in an
unprecedented move against the totalitarian regime. The events in Timisoara are
seen as the trigger of the Revolution, which culminated in the fall of the
Ceausescu regime. Over 1,000 people died and more than 3,400 were wounded in
the Revolution.

The Minister Delegate for
Relations with Romanians Abroad, Dan Stoenescu, attended on Friday events
marking 25 years of activity of the Romanian Community in Serbia. On the
occasion, the Romanian official voiced gratitude for the activity carried out
by the Community towards protecting the Romanians’ rights in fields that are
vital for the national identity. The minister delegate reaffirmed the Romanian
state’s determination to collaborate with the Serbian one for the preservation
and development of Romanian identity, as well as the importance of supporting
the projects developed and carried out by the Romanian community.

The UN Security Council has
unanimously adopted a resolution regarding peace negotiations between the power
and the opposition in Syria. The document calls on the UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon to bring together representatives of the Syrian government and
opposition to start official negotiations on an urgent political transition
process. The aim is to actually start negotiations in early January 2016. For
almost five years now, Syria has been devastated by a terrible conflict, which
has claimed over 250,000 lives and has forced millions of people to flee the
country.

Moscow believes that the
deployment of the anti-missile defense system in eastern Europe, along the
border between NATO and Russia, is an offense and refuses to accept the
explanation provided by the US and Romania with regard to the strictly
defensive nature of the shield. Recently, the Kremlin has announced it has the
necessary means to penetrate the protection system, which, the Kremlin says, couldn’t face a
large number of missiles anyway. On Friday, the anti-missile shield in Deveselu,
eastern Romania, became functional and is to be rendered fully operational by
July 2016. The US Ambassador to
Bucharest stated on the occasion that the anti-missile system was designed to deal
with threats coming from outside Europe, and not to target Russia.

The
Romanian Foreign Ministry is carefully monitoring the situation of the Romanian
citizen whose five underage children were taken away by the child welfare
authorities in Norway. According to the Romanian Ministry, the Romanian Embassy
in Oslo approached officials with the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and Parliament
to settle the matter. The children were taken from their family following a
teachers’ accusation. One of the girls sang a Christian song at school, and the
teacher announced the authorities, saying that the children were being religiously
indoctrinated by their family. In Bucharest, several hundreds of people
protested in front of the Norwegian embassy on Saturday.

On Sunday, the Norwegian and
the Dutch teams will play the final of the World Women’s Handball Championship
hosted by Denmark. Also on Sunday, the Romanian squad will face the Polish one
and will try to win the bronze, as on Friday they lost the semi-final against Norway
25-33 and Poland lost to the Netherlands 30-25. Romania is the only country
that has participated in all World Championship editions held since 1957. The
national team won gold in 1962 and silver in 1973 and 2005 respectively.