3 February, 2016

The Romanian Senate has endorsed the prosecution of former deputy prime minister and interior minister Gabriel Oprea

Newsroom, 03.02.2016, 12:00

The Romanian Senate has today complied with the request of
the National Anti-Corruption Directorate regarding the prosecution of the
senator of the National Union for the Progress of Romania, Gabriel Oprea,
former deputy prime minister for national security and interior minister. The
decision was passed with 102 ayes and 31 nays. Oprea is accused of two abuses
in the office and obtaining under served gifts for himself or for another
person at the time he was in office. One of the offences is the use of the
Interior Ministry’s human and material resources to illegally ensure the
minister’s police escort. The second offence is related to the conclusion of an
agreement under which the general prosecutor Tiberiu Nitu allegedly benefited
from a motorcade. Prosecutors say that Tiberiu Nitu, who resigned on Tuesday,
is not under investigation. The law stipulates that only the president, the
prime minister and the two presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate
respectively have the right to a motorcade and ministers can use it only in
emergencies.

The Commission for labour and social protection of
the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday passed the draft law shortening the adoption
time and simplifying the adoption procedures, so that a child could be adopted
more quickly. To facilitate a better relationship between children and their
new family, the Commission increased the accommodation leave granted to parents
from 3 to 12 months. If within a year, parents failed to adopt a child, they
are now given one more year to do it.

The French credit insurance company Coface has
maintained the B country risk rating for Romania, which is indicative of an
unstable macroeconomic environment, the company’s 2015 macroeconomic Report
says. Despite the macroeconomic balance, the setback in the transition to the
Euro and the compliance with the nominal convergence criteria, Romania is still
vulnerable because of the structural character of domestic microeconomic
imbalance, the Report shows.

The Romanian government is today discussing the
emergency ordinance whereby Justice Minister, Raluca Pruna calls for the
repealing of the legal provision reducing the sentences of detainees publishing
scientific works, laid down in the Roman law since 1969. The Minister justifies
her request through the fact that in the last couple of years, abuses have been
reported entailing intellectual imposture. The phenomenon has gained momentum:
whereas 90 works were written in 2014, in 2015, 340 works were published.

According to the National Institute of Statistics,
9.8 million tourists were accommodated in various units in Romania in 2015, by
17.2% more than in 2014. 77.4% of the total number of tourists were Romanian
and 22.6% were foreign, the figures being similar to the ones in 2014. Three
quarters of the foreign tourists came from Europe. The average stay of Romanian
tourists was 2.5 days and that of foreign tourists was 2 days. 36.3% of the
tourists stayed in hotels, 21.8% in villas and 20.4% in hostels.

King Felipe the 5th of Spain has
designated the leader of the Socialist Worker’s Party, Pedro Sanchez, to form a
new government, thus ending the political crisis the country has been undergoing
for more than six weeks, after the parliamentary elections of last December.
The Socialist Worker’s Party came in second at the elections, after the ruling
People’s Party. The centre-right prime minister, Mariano Rajoy has failed to
secure a majority after two new parties, Podemos and Ciudadanos managed to
obtain better results and change the traditional two-party system in Spain.

The special UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura
has called for additional efforts to be made to avoid the failure of the peace
talks on Syria that started in Geneva on Monday. De Mistura has underscored
that if negotiations fail, there will be no more hope for Syria. The UN envoy
tries to establish an indirect dialogue between the regime in Damascus and the
opposition. In another development, leaders the world over attending the London
conference on Thursday will try to raise nine billion dollars for the 18
million Syrians, who are victims of the war, with a view to containing the
refugee crisis affecting the host countries from the Middle East to Europe, FP
reports. The Syrian conflict, which started in March 2011 through peaceful
demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, has so far left over 260,000
dead, triggering a major humanitarian crisis on Syrian soil as some 13.5
million people are vulnerable or have sought refuge.

(Translated by: Ana Maria Palcu)