December 29, 2017 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 29.12.2017, 19:53
DIALOGUE NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that he expects the Alliance to have a stepped-up dialogue with Russia in 2018 both at the political level as well as through the military communication channels. The statement came after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said that an intensified dialogue with Russia didn’t mean the normalization of relations. Russia’s relations with NATO have been at their lowest ebb since the cold war, mainly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in early 2014 and the support it provided to the pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine. After two years of frozen relations, NATO and Russia resumed talks in 2016 at embassy level and held their first high-level military talks in 2017.
POLL 75% of Romanians believe that things are going the wrong way, according to an opinion poll run by the Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy. Only 17% of respondents are content with the way in which the country is going. 7% believe that things are going neither in the right, nor the wrong way, 2% said they do not know. 40% of Romanians said they were not quite content with the way things are going, 36% said they were quite content, 19% said they were unhappy with the way things are going, 4% said they were very happy, with 1% saying they could not tell or not answering at all. 45% are of the opinion that 2017 was worse than 2016, 30% said it was the same, 24% said it was better, with a 1% undecided option. The most important events of the year are considered the death of King Michael I, on 5 December, the anti-government protests of January and February, with 8 percentage points each. In terms of confidence, Romanians trust the EU the most, 38%, their mayor, 31%, and the media, 31%, with the lowest confidence figures going towards Parliament, 11%, and political parties, 8%. They also believe that Romania should have a better relationship with Germany, 64%, and with the US 57%. The poll ran between December 6 and 8, and has a margin of error of 2.5%.
RESHUFFLING Liviu Dragnea, the head of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the main party of the leftist ruling coalition, has announced that next month he will discuss with their partners, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) about a possible government reshuffle. Dragnea has pointed out that personally, he is satisfied with the activity of the ministers and of PM Mihai Tudose. The Social Democratic leader has also said that he is against an extraordinary parliament session summoned to discuss amendments to the Criminal Codes, and he also opposes the issuing of an emergency decree on this matter. He believes that these bills must also be passed following debates, but emphasises the fact that by April 2018 the EU directive regarding the presumption of innocence and the right to fair trial must be included into the Romanian law. Other amendments to the Criminal Codes are generated by rulings of the Romanian Constitutional Court and European Court of Human Rights. The righ-of-center opposition, civil society and the media are harshly criticising the government coalition’s plan to amend the justice laws, and accuse them of trying to subordinate magistrates and put an end to the battle against corruption. Last week, embassies of seven EU member states called on all parties involved in the reform process of the Romanian justice system to avoid any action that might compromise the independence of the judicial system.
