May 3, 2017 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 03.05.2017, 19:20

ORGANISED CRIME – Police and prosecutors with the Directorate Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) on Wednesday conducted home searches in Bucharest and several counties in Romania, targeting an organised crime group in a case involving the National Freight Railways Corporation. Forty people, including the current and the former managers of the corporation, are suspected of having set up an organised crime group, of aggravated embezzlement, forgery and fraud. The group members allegedly under-appraised in 2016 assets belonging to the company, before selling nearly 2,500 freight cars intended for scrapping. The difference between the actual worth and the under-assessed worth of the goods went, according to the police, into the accounts of a company that collected ferrous scrap metal. As a result, the Corporation incurred losses of over 6.3 million euros.

PRESS FREEDOM – Press used as a tool of propaganda and the involution of quality journalism are the main characteristics of the Romania media in the past year, reads the latest Active Watch report on press freedom. The main problems identified by the report, published on Wednesday on World Press Freedom Day, are propaganda, public intoxication, disinformation, threats and biased speeches. Journalism is still used abusively by some people in order to intimidate, blackmail or influence peddle, and the serious professional misconduct of some news televisions has triggered reaction on the part of the audience and civil society. According to the report, the former leadership of the public radio started an aggressive campaign against the bill on the separation of the offices of president and director general of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation. This campaign was sanctioned by the National Audiovisual Council for bias. Also, the leadership of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation harassed, by means of internal investigations, the radio journalists who notified such cases of misconduct and issued an order establishing restrictions with regard to journalists liberty to report cases of professional and legal misconduct. Previously, a report drawn up by Reports without Borders, published last week, ranked Romania 46th out of 180 countries in the world press freedom index. Romania went up 3 places since last year.

EU COUNCIL – The Romanian Foreign Ministry organised in Bucharest on Wednesday a conference on the Romanian presidency of the EU Council, in the first half of 2019. Romania has the opportunity to set a new fresh and dynamic pace that would help the rebirth of the European project, said the Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu in his message to the participants in the conference. In turn, the Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu announced that, while holding the six-month presidency of the EU Council, Bucharest will take action to accelerate the integration of the Balkan countries and will organise an eastern partnership summit. The European Affairs Minister Ana Birchall stated that the EU Council presidency is a national project for Romania and, although the times will be difficult, the challenge can be turned into an opportunity.

BREXIT – Britain will not pay 100 billion euros to leave the EU, the Finance Secretary David Davis said on Wednesday, after British media reported that the EU negotiators had revised their original figures. The new bill, 40 billion euros higher than previous estimates, includes the payment of farming subsidies and administrative fees to the EU. Other elements taken into account are the budget of the UK and the EU investment expenditure. The revision of estimates indicates a tougher position taken by the 27 member states with respect to Britains demands. The EUs chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier presented the priorities for the first stage of negotiations: reaching an agreement on the method of calculation of Britains financial obligations, protecting the rights of the European citizens living in Great Britain and the external borders issue. Michel Barnier did not provide an estimate for the amount that Great Britain should pay to the EU, but stressed the fact that the financial agreement did not entail punishing the country. The date of the official divorce was set for March 29, 2019, unless an extension is agreed on by decision-makers.

FRENCH ELECTION – According to the latest opinion poll made public on Wednesday, Emanuel Macron, the candidate of the social-liberal civic organisation En Marche!, is very likely to win the second round of the presidential elections to be held in France on Sunday, Le Figaro reports. According to the poll conducted by Ipsos, Macron is supported by 59% of the voters, while Marine Le Pen, running for the National Front, would only get 41%. The on-line poll was run between April 30 – May 1, and covered a representative sample of 13,742 people.

MOLDOVA – The presence of any troops or military bases headed and controlled by other countries, on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, is against the Constitution, Moldovas Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday. The president of the Constitutional Court, Alexandru Tănase, explained that although the legislation makes it clear that “the Republic of Moldova does not allow the deployment of foreign military on its territory,” there are still Russian Federation troops in the pro-Russian breakaway region of Transdniester.

TOURISM – Check-ins in Romanian accommodation units in the first quarter of the year totalled more than 2 million people, up around 11% compared to the same period of 2016, according to data made public on Wednesday by the National Statistics Institute. Most of the foreign tourists came from Europe (76.2% of the total), especially from Germany, Italy, and the UK. Last year the number of foreign tourists was nearly 11% larger than in 2015, namely 2.5 million, a record for the last few decades.

WRESTLING – The Romanian athlete Andrei Dukov won the silver in the 57-kilo freestyle category, on Tuesday, at the European Wrestling Championships in Novi Sad, Serbia. Defeated in the final by the Georgian-born Azeri Giorgi Edisherashvili, Dukov improved his performance since last year, when he won bronze in the continental championship. Also on Tuesday, on the first day of the competition, the Romanian Alina Vuc won the bronze in the 48 kilogram category, after defeating the Polish Anna Lukasiak. Romania, which has already reached its two medal target for this competition, is taking part in the European Championship in Novi Sad with 14 athletes.