May 25, 2017

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Newsroom, 25.05.2017, 13:49

PRESIDENCY — The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, is taking part today in Brussels in the meeting of NATO leaders. According to the Presidency, he will emphasise that Romania is a reliable, predictable and responsible ally, especially after having increased its Defence budget to 2% of the GDP. President Iohannis will also lay emphasis on the importance of strengthening NATO’s eastern flank and will support an enhanced role of the Alliance in fighting terrorism. On the sidelines of the meeting, the Romanian President will have a meeting with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. The main topic of discussion will be the strengthening of the bilateral strategic partnership, the Presidency also announced.

EXERCISE — Four thousand military, heavy equipment and helicopter gunships will be deployed to the Cincu shooting range in central Romania, to take part in one of the biggest NATO military exercises in recent years. The troops are part of NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force. The main aim is defending Romania as part of emergency interventions on the Alliance’s eastern flank. Joining Romanian troops will be military from Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Norway, Albania and Bulgaria.

IMF — Romanian economy will grow by 4.2% in 2017, with fiscal relaxation slightly likely to affect market confidence, reads an IMF report made public today. The international lender has hailed the progress Romania has made in curbing economic imbalances, after the financial global crisis, recommending however that Romania reorient its policies from boosting consumption towards supporting investors. IMF claims that fiscal relaxation, doubled by the growing political turmoil in Romania, might affect consumption and investment. On the other hand, the unified pay scale law, currently under debate in Parliament, as well as the latest tax cuts, pose certain risks for the budget deficit, which the IMF expects to stand at 3,7% this year. The report is based on the talks IMF officials had with Bucharest authorities in March.

ASCENSION DAY – Orthodox, Greek-Catholic and Roman-Catholic believers in Romania are today celebrating Ascension Day. According to Christian beliefs, 40 days after Resurrection, Lord Jesus departed from Earth into the presence of God from the Mount of Olives, warning his disciples to remain in Jerusalem until the coming of the Holy Spirit. Since 1920, when, after WWI, all Romanian historical provinces united under Bucharest’s authority, Ascension Day has been celebrated together with the Heroes’ Day. Today at noon church bells were rung in all Orthodox churches across Romania to honour the memory of those who gave their lives for the Romanian people, faith and country, and the names of the soldiers killed in WWI were solemnly read out in most garrisons which also hosted military and religious ceremonies.

MOLDOVA — The special envoy of the Austrian presidency of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE, Wolf Dietrich Heim, is today meeting pro-Russian separatist leaders from Transdniestr. On Wednesday, Heim held talks in Chisinau with the Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration, Gheorghe Balan, the latter accusing separatists of avoiding dialogue, especially after Chisinau and Kiev authorities have voiced their plans to set up joint border crossing checkpoints on the Moldovan-Ukrainian border with Transdniestr. We recall that Russian troops are still deployed in Transdniestr, a breakaway region east of Moldova, although Moscow pledged to withdraw its troops after the OSCE Summit of 1999 in Istanbul.

TRUMP –US President Donald Trump is in Brussels, where he takes part for the first time in a NATO Summit, after having been rather critical of the Alliance in the past. The NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, announced the Alliance would join the international coalition fighting the Islamic State jihadist group, although it will not take part in combat operations. The decision has long been called for by the US, which is heading the coalition and which has repeatedly called for NATO members to raise their defence budgets to 2% of the GDP. On Wednesday, his first day in Brussels, Trump had a meeting with King Philippe I of Belgium, while thousands of people were protesting in the Belgian capital city against his presence. Brussels is a stage in Trump’s first international tour as president, after Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Italy and the Vatican. Trump will next head for Taormina, in Sicily, for the G7 summit.

LONDON ATTACK — The Manchester Police today arrested two suspects in connection with Monday’s night terror attack, taking the number of arrests to 8. Another woman suspected of having been involved in the attack was released without being indicted. We recall that a blast on Manchester Arena on Monday killed 22 people and injured another 60, being claimed by the Islamic State terrorist organization. On Tuesday, British authorities have identified the suspect as being 22-year-old Salman Abedi, a Lybian-born British national born in Manchester. According to Interior Secretary Amber Rudd, Abedi was on the British intelligence’s suspect list and most likely did not act alone.

MIGRANTS — Tens of migrants, among whom many children, drowned on Wednesday after falling from an overcrowded wooden boat off the Libyan coast. A ship of the Italian coast guard that coordinates rescue services in the area alongside several commercial ships have managed to rescue scores of survivors. Last Friday another 150 migrants were reported missing. According to a report by the International Organization for Migration almost 1,300 people have died on their way to Europe. 50,000 of them have managed to reach Italy, France Press reports.

TENNIS — Romanian tennis player Sorana Cirstea, 67 WTA, is today playing Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan, 28 WTA, in the quarterfinals of the Nurnberg tournament, totalling 230,000 dollars in prize money. In another development, Horia Tecau or Romania and Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands have qualified to the semi-finals of the tournament in Geneva, offering 500,000 dollars in prize money. In the quarterfinals, Tecau and Rojer ousted the competition’s first seeds, Philipp Petzschner of Germany and Alexander Peya of Austria in straight sets.

FOOTBALL — English giants Manchester United have for the first time won the Europa League Trophy. Wednesday night in the final hosted by the city of Stockholm in Sweden, Manchester United grabbed a 2-nil win against their Dutch challengers Ajax Amsterdam. The Europa League final was played ahead of the Champions League final, scheduled on June 3 in Cardiff, where Spanish giants Real Madrid take on the no less famous Italian contenders Juventus FC. This coming Saturday in the town of Ploiesti, southern Romanian team Astra Giurgiu for the first time ever is pitted against FC Voluntari, in Romanian Cup Final. Also as an absolute first, the domestic championship title went to FC Viitorul, a team from south-eastern Romania’s Constanta. The team was founded in 2009 by the former great Romanian footballer Gheorghe Hagi. The League Cup, a competition exclusively created for first-tier teams, went to Dinamo Bucharest. In the final, Dinamo defeated Poli Timisoara 2-nil. (Translated by V. Palcu, L. Simion, A.M. Popescu & E. Nasta)