November 14, 2016

Rumen Radev wins Bulgarian presidential election

Newsroom, 14.11.2016, 12:00

FOREIGN AFFAIRS – Romanian Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu is today attending alongside his EU counterparts the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels. The agenda of the meeting covers such issues as the situation in Turkey, the Eastern Partnership, the developments in the Southern Neighbourhood, with special emphasis being laid on the Syrian file. The stage of implementing the EU Global Strategy for Common Foreign and Security Policy will be approached during a common session of the EU foreign and defence ministers, on the same day. On the sidelines of the Council, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, on Sunday initiated an informal talk between the foreign ministers, including Lazar Comanescu, on the trans-Atlantic relation.

ELECTION – General Rumen Radev, a former air force commander, won the presidential election held on Sunday in Bulgaria. The pro-Russia, anti-migration Radev won 58.1 percent of the vote, compared with 35.3 percent for the candidate of the ruling centre-right GERB party, Tsetska Tsacheva. Centre-right Prime Minister Boyko Borisov quit his post following the defeat of Tsetska Tsacheva.

UNITED STATES – Barack Obama has today started his final foreign trip as the United States head of state. He will first visit Greece, then meet with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, British Premier Theresa May and Italian PM Matteo Renzi. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent to Washington DC, after his stop in Germany, President Obama will head to Lima, Peru, for the final leg of his trip and his final APEC Leaders’ Summit, where the focus will be on trans-Pacific trade. As of January 2017, the new president-elect Donald Trump will replace Barack Obama at the White House.

MILITRY DRILL – Military from Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Georgia are today taking part in a multinational exercise for combat engineers, held in south-eastern Romania until November 18. The military drill is hosted every year by each of the four countries, under NATO coordination.

MOLDOVA – The pro-Russian Socialist Igor Dodon won the second round of the presidential elections in the Republic of Moldova, with 52% of the votes. His contender, the pro-European reformer Maia Sandu got only 48% of the votes, according to results made public today by the Central Electoral Committee. Voters were called to the polls to elect their president through direct voting, for the first time in 16 years, time in which the head of state was appointed by Parliament.

FOOTBALL – Romania’s national football squad will play a friendly match against Russia on Tuesday in Grozny. On Friday, Romania’s national team sustained a 3-nil defeat against Poland, in Bucharest, in a fixture counting towards the preliminaries of the 2018 World Cup. After the game Romania’s manager, the German Christoph Daum admitted his team now stands slim chances to qualify for the final tournament. With 5 points on their record sheet, Romania is 4th placed in Group E.