November 7, 2019 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 07.11.2019, 19:52
Miners — The miners in Uricani and Paroşeni (center west) on Thursday suspended their protest started 11 days ago when they barricaded themselves in the underground. They have stopped the protest and are now waiting for the new government to meet its promises to solve the miners’ problems. On Wednesday the government officials had a first reading of an emergency decree related to the social protection of sacked miners. It refers to a monthly income granted for 2 years and the registration of this period of time as seniority. Trade unionists say this is the longest miners’ protest in the past 15 years. A program to close and clean up the two mines started at the end of 2017. Also, tens of miners from the Ocna Dej salt mine in the north-west have barricaded themselves underground to protest against the fact that they have not received their holiday vouchers. For this reason, the salt production was suspended for a week at several salt mines in Romania.
Visit — On a visit to Hungary, the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened again, on Thursday, that he might let the almost 3.5 million refugees from Turkey leave if the EU did not provide enough support. The Turkish president said the EU promised to grant his country 6 billion Euros, but that they received only a part of the money. In 2106 Brussels and Ankara concluded an agreement under which Turkey committed to stopping the wave of migrants in exchange for substantial financial aid. According to the EC over 2.6 billion Euros have been granted so far. Erdogan also called on the EU to support his initiative to create in northern Syria a ‘security zone’ where part of the Syrian refugees who are currently in Turkey should be repatriated. (update by L. Simion)