February 2, 2016 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news.

Newsroom, 02.02.2016, 12:15

Romania’s General Prosecutor,
Tiberiu Nitu, resigned on Tuesday, 4 months before the end of his term in office and a week after his name
appeared in the case in which the National Anti-corruption Directorate called
for the prosecution of the former Deputy Prime Minister Gabriel Oprea, for
abuse of power in using official motorcades. Nitu has stated that his
resignation comes despite the good results of the Romanian judiciary, as also
reflected by the latest country report drawn up the European Commission. He has
said he does not want the name and position of general prosecutor to be
associated with an image that might damage the Romanian judiciary.

The legal
committee of the Romanian Senate has endorsed the prosecution of the former
Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Gabriel Oprea. The Anti-corruption
prosecutors have accused Oprea of office malfeasance regarding the illegal use
of the official motorcade and also of having concluded with the General
Prosecutor’s Office a protocol under which Romania’s Prosecutor General would
illegally benefit from official police escort. Senator Gabriel Oprea claims he
is not guilty and does not want to make
use of its parliamentary immunity.

The Romanian PM Dacian Ciolos
has had a meeting with the EU Ambassadors to Bucharest, organized by the Dutch
Embassy, devoted to the Dutch presidency of the EU Council. After the meeting,
Ciolos stated he had explained the ambassadors the priorities of the Romanian
government, Bucharest’s stand on migration and the reasons why Romania
continued to be a major candidate for Schengen accession. He also said the
participants discussed the situation in the Republic of Moldova, against the
background of Romania being known by the European and Euro-Atlantic partners as
regards its coordination and cooperation with that country.

The European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development – EBRD-
will help Romania use European funds for projects aimed at
boosting economic and social development. This is the object of the agreement
signed on Tuesday between the Romanian Government and EBRD. The document was
signed by the Romanian State Secretary with the Ministry of European Funds,
Emanoil Dascalu and the EBRD Regional Director for Romania and Bulgaria, Matteo
Patrone, in the presence of Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos and the EBRD President
Suma Chakrabarti, reads a communiqué issued by the bank.

The Romanian Foreign Minister
Lazar Comanescu attended in Sofia on Tuesday the informal meeting of the
foreign ministers of the countries that are party to the South-East European
Cooperation Process. In his speech, Comanescu reiterated Romania’s support for
the advancement of the European and Euro-Atlantic integration in the south-east
European region and stressed Romania’s concern over the worrying developments
in the eastern neighborhood of the EU. The Romanian Foreign Minister also
talked about Romania’s approach to curbing the effects of migration and
terrorism on the countries members of the SEECP and EU. On the sidelines of the
meeting, the Romanian minister also held talks with his Bulgarian, Macedonian
and Albanian counterparts.

NATO stages naval
military exercises in the Black Sea waters this month, involving military ships
from Bulgaria, Romania, Spain and Turkey. The exercises will consist mainly in surveillance of
the sea routes, to prevent illegal trafficking of goods and people. The
exercise is part of the Romanian Navy’s work plan for 2016 and aims at raising
the Romanian military interoperability level with NATO partners.

The President of the European
Council, Donald Tusk, has presented its proposals for an agreement regarding
the reform of the EU, which would prevent Great Britain from leaving the Union.
Tusk has set forth a safeguard
mechanism, under which welfare for European immigrants in Great Britain
would be limited to four years. He has also promised London to observe the
rights and competences of the countries that are not members of the Eurozone.
Donald Tusk has held negotiations in London with the British PM David Cameron,
whose main request concerned the limitation of the European immigrants’ access
to the British welfare system. Following the talks, Cameron has stated that the
proposals made by the EU to make sure Great Britain remains part of the EU
account for a real progress but, he has also added, there is still a lot more
to be done in that respect. The British PM has promised the population he will
renegotiate his country’s relations with the EU and will then hold a referendum
on whether Britain should stay or not in the EU.

The Pentagon estimates a four
times increase, up to 3.4 billion dollars, of its expenditure for Europe in
2017, against what it called the ‘Russian aggression’, announced on Tuesday the
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, quoted by Reuters and FP. Carter stated
that Pentagon’s request for funding would be in line with the agreement reached
in the US Congress regarding the budget, but spending would focus on the five
main challenges facing the US armed forces: Russia, China, North Korea, Iran
and the Islamic State. He also stated that by 2017 he envisaged an increase by
50%, up to 7.5 billion dollars, of the budget earmarked for funding the fight
against the Islamic State jihadist movement.

The head of the Syrian
delegation to the peace negotiations in Geneva said on Tuesday that talks were still in the preparation phase
and was still waiting for the UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura to present
the list of members of the Syrian delegation, Reuters and FP reports. On the other
side, representatives of the opposition say that they will not negotiate unless
the Damascus government ceases bombardments in civil areas and releases the
prisoners.

The Zika virus
poses no threat to Romania at the moment but people who travel to Central and
South America might be exposed to it, the head of the Romanian Society of
Microbiology, Alexandru Rafila, said on Tuesday. The World Health Organization has stated that the clusters of
brain-damaged babies born in Brazil – linked to but not proven to be caused by
the Zika virus – constitute a public health emergency of international concern.
The WHO director Margaret Chan called Zika an extraordinary event and a public
health threat to other parts of the world.The infection has been linked to cases of microcephaly, in which babies
are born with underdeveloped brains. The WHO, which puts Zika in the same
category of concern as Ebola, made the announcement on Monday evening in
Geneva. Currently, there is no vaccine
or medication to stop Zika. In Europe
and North America tens of cases if infection with the virus have been reported
among people that have traveled to Latin America.