August 23, 2017

French President Emmanuel Macron will pay an official visit to Romania on Thursday/ Romania hails the announcement made by the U.S. President, Donald Trump, on a surge deployment of 4,000 additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan

Bogdan Matei, 23.08.2017, 14:14

VISIT – French President Emmanuel Macron will pay an official visit to Romania tomorrow. The French leader will have talks with President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Mihai Tudose. The two presidents will give a joint press conference at the end of the bilateral talks and afterwards they will visit the National Village Museum. The two heads of state are likely to have an open dialogue on boosting trade exchanges, as well as on cooperation during the 2018-2019 Romania-France Cultural Season, an important bilateral cultural project. Another focal point on the agenda of talks is Romanias Schengen accession, in the context in which the two presidents agreed, in June, to boost dialogue so that a favourable decision on Romanias joining the free movement area be made as soon as possible.

AFGHANISTAN – Romania hails the announcement made by the U.S. President, Donald Trump, on supplementing US troops in Afghanistan by 4,000 military, the Romanian defence minister Adrian Ţuţuianu has said. Ţuţuianu has added that Romania, too, might increase the number of troops it contributes to the “Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan. At present, some 626 Romanian military are deployed in that Central-Asian state, Bucharest being the alliances fourth largest contributor of troops.

REMEMBRANCE DAY – The signing on August 23, 1939 of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact is a confirmation of the fact that Fascism, Nazism and Communism are nothing else but forms of manifestation of the same antidemocratic expressions of hatred and intolerance, says Romanias President, Klaus Iohannis, in the message he sent today on the Remembrance Day for Victims of Fascism and Communism. The president added that the pact concluded by the Nazi and Soviet foreign ministers, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Veaceslav Molotov, respectively, was an odious act in history including against the Greater Union and the Romanians desideratum of peace and freedom. For its firm and unequivocal condemnation, the Romanian Centennial must find us consistent in the struggle to defend democracy, the rule of law and individual liberties. Let us not forget that more than half of the one hundred years since the achievement of the national ideal we lived under dictatorships, and many of the personalities who contributed to the Greater Union were persecuted by totalitarian regimes. Therefore, our efforts must now be directed towards the condemnation of all actions that could affect the democratic path that Romania embarked on, in December 1989, and consolidated by its NATO and EU membership. In the current European and global context, marked by many challenges and uncertainties, the defence and consolidation of the rule of law, democracy and freedom against any enemies hostile to open societies is a priority of the present, the president also said. We recall that, in the wake of the Soviet-Nazi agreement, following an ultimatum given in the summer of 1940, Moscow annexed Romanias eastern territories of Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and Hertza. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Romanians left their homes in the way of the occupiers, and other tens of thousands were arrested, executed or deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan.

JUSTICE – Romanian justice minister, Tudorel Toader, has today made public a draft designed to amend the justice laws. He said the draft does not include provisions related to pardoning, amnesty, and abuse of office or negligence in employment. The draft is amending and completing the law on the statute of judges and prosecutors, the law on judicial organisation and the law on the Higher Council of Magistracy, the minister has also said. The aforementioned laws are 13 years old and should be adjusted to EU norms, Tudorel Toader has explained. Some of the changes include, among others, increasing the number of years necessary to be promoted to the status of prosecutors and judges and those related to the law on extended confiscation of wealth in corruption cases. Furthermore, management positions will have a four-year mandate, instead of a 3-year tenure, as is the case at present. The draft will be submitted to the government and then forwarded to Parliament.

FOOTBALL– Romanias football vice-champion, FCSB, formerly known as Steaua Bucharest, is this evening meeting on home turf Portugals Sporting Lisbon, in a Champions League play-off decisive match. The first match played by the two teams in Lisbon ended in a nil-draw. If it fails to qualify for the Champions League group stage, FCSB is automatically qualified for the Europa League. On Thursday, Romanias champion, Viitorul Constanta, in the south-east, is playing a tie match, away from home, to qualify for the Europe League group stage with the Austrian team Red Bull Salzburg. In the first round, Viitorul lost 1-3, on home turf.