April 18, 2018

Romanias President, Klaus Iohannis, has opened the first summit of the Bucharest Format, B9, a parliamentary diplomacy meeting attended by representatives of nine European countries and NATO high officials

Mihai Pelin, 18.04.2018, 14:35

B 9 – Romanias President, Klaus Iohannis, has today opened the first summit of the Bucharest Format, B9, a parliamentary diplomacy meeting attended by representatives of nine European countries and NATO high officials. The Romanian president has said the national parliaments of the B9 member states play a key role in fairly sharing responsibilities within NATO, particularly by approving budgets meant to support a more daring NATO joint security and defence approach. On this occasion, president Iohannis has underlined that since as early as 2017 Romania allots 2% of the GDP for defence, every year. The conference is aimed at consolidating the role of national parliaments relative to security and defence issues. Some of the issues on the agenda of talks are strengthening NATOs eastern flank, preparations for the NATO summit due in Brussels in July and fighting terrorism. The event will come to a close on Thursday.

REVOLUTION CASE – The Prosecutor General has today announced that Teodor Brateş, the main TVq presenter and anchor of the Public Television Company between December 22 and 24 1989, during the events which led to the fall of communism in Romania is being indicted for having been the main factor of disseminating fake, diversionist news, thus inducing a general psychosis regarding terrorists which deeply affected the whole population. On Tuesday, in the same case, army prosecutors announced the extension of the interval for the criminal prosecution of the former president of the country Ion Iliescu to December 27-31. Last week, the current president Klaus Iohannis endorsed the start of the criminal prosecution of Ion Iliescu, of the former Prime Minister Petre Roman and of the former deputy Prime Minister Gelu Voican Voculescu, who can be sent to court for crimes against humanity. According to prosecutors, the armed incidents that occurred after December 22, in several towns and cities across Romania, are indicative of the fact that everything occurred as the result of a pre-established plan, aimed at helping the new leaders take over power and gain legitimacy. According to official statistics, in December 1989 over 1,100 people were killed and more than 3,000 were wounded.

ID CARDS– Identity cards held by EU citizens above the age of 12 will be required
to include biometric data, fingerprints and facial images, the European
Commission proposed on Tuesday. Thus,
the European Commission wants that common security standards be introduced at
community level. However, around 80 million Europeans currently have ID cards
without biometric identifiers, so these documents cannot be scanned. The move
taken by the EC is part of a crackdown on the criminal use of ID cards, by terrorists and criminals who want to enter the EU,
coming from countries outside the community bloc.

ANTI-CORRUPTION – The National Anti-corruption Directorate, DNA, has called on the Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, to endorse the start of prosecution against former finance minister Sebastian Vlădescu. He is suspected of two bribe taking offences while he was a member of the government. In the same case, prosecution started against former MP Cristian Boureanu. The corruption offences were allegedly related to the signing and implementation of the contracts for the rehabilitation of the Bucharest- Constanta railway, as well as the recovery of the remaining VAT, for rehabilitation works on another railway, between 2005 and 2014.

FOOTBALL – The General Assembly of the Romanian Football Federation (FRF) is today electing the future president of this forum for the following four years. The main candidates are the current president, Răzvan Burleanu, and former Romanian football player Ionuţ Lupescu, who had been the director of UEFAs Development and Technical Assistance Committee until February. 257 affiliated members have the right to vote in the elections for the leadership of the Romanian Football Federation. The campaign for the presidency of the Federation has been given wide coverage by the media, against the backdrop of mutual accusations being levelled by Burleanu and Lupescu.