May 21, 2023

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Newsroom, 21.05.2023, 13:55

EDUCATION
In Bucharest, the Liberal PM Nicolae Ciucă, the Social Democratic leader Marcel
Ciolacu and the labour minister Marius Budăi invited trade unions in public
education to talks in order to avoid an all-out strike announced for tomorrow. Unionists
said protests could only end when the solutions to their demands, particularly
concerning salaries, were introduced in officially endorsed legislation. The
finance minister Adrian Câciu said the teaching staff’s demands could have been
solved, if Romania had received the money in the second disbursement round
under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which is currently suspended
because of targets that have not been met in the field of energy, for which the
National Liberal Party is responsible. On the other hand, PM Nicolae Ciucă said
the solution to the unions’ demands has to do with the unified salary law that
the labour ministry headed by the Social Democrats has failed to finalise in
spite of the support of the entire ruling coalition. Amid these disagreements, the
president of the Social Democratic Party, Marcel Ciolacu, demanded that
negotiations on the new cabinet make-up following the PM rotation should be
suspended until the issue in the education sector has been solved, and the Democratic
Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, a junior partner in the ruling
coalition, agreed. The Liberals on the other hand argue that the government
transition should be completed quickly in order to maintain stability and
balance. Under a protocol signed by the 2 parties, on 26 May the Social
Democrats should take over the prime minister post from the Liberals, for the
next 1,5 years, until the next general elections.

MOLDOVA
A large-scale rally is held in Chişinău today, at the
initiative of president Maia Sandu, in order to prove Moldovans’ support for
the country’s EU accession. Europe is the Republic of Moldova. The Republic of
Moldova is Europe. Moldova is not alone, the president of the European
Parliament, Roberta Metsola said in Romanian at the European Moldova National
Assembly. Participants adopted a resolution confirming the support of Moldovan
citizens for the country’s EU accession efforts. The rally takes place as the Republic
of Moldova, an EU accession candidate country, would like to begin accession
negotiations by the end of this year. For this stage to begin, Moldova must
complete 9 recommendations, which will be assessed by this autumn in a European
Commission report. In Bucharest, the Organisation of Moldovan Students
organised a similar rally in front of Moldova’s Embassy. Scores of people
watched the speeches in Chisinau jointly with the Moldovan Ambassador to
Bucharest, Victor Chirila.

UKRAINE The US president Joe Biden Sunday announced new military aid
measures for Ukraine, following talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy,
on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima. The new aid package will
consist of ammunitions, artillery and armoured vehicles, Joe Biden explained, just
days after approving the provision of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. According
to Reuters, this new package is worth up to USD 375 mln and is designed to
strengthen Ukraine’s defence in the war against Russia. The British PM Rishi
Sunak also announced in Hiroshima that his country would start training
Ukrainian pilots this summer, to support Ukraine’s air forces in the conflict.
Rishi Sunak added that no one wants peace more than Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but
the terms for peace, he added, should be based on Ukraine’s principles. In the
3-day summit in Japan, the G7 nations voiced their willingness to stand by
Ukraine in the long run.

FLOODING
In Italy, code red alerts for heavy rainfalls with landslide risks are valid
today as well, in the Emilia Romagna region in the north of the country, already
affected by unprecedented flash floods. Fourteen people died and 36,000 others
were evacuated by the authorities. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent
in Italy, in Ravenna province alone, the most severely hit by the floods, over 16%
of the territory has been evacuated. A preliminary estimate by Confagricoltura,
the association of Italian farmers, indicates that the flooding in Emilia
Romagna caused crop damages of over EUR 1.5 bln.

GREECE
Greece is holding elections today for its single-chamber 300-seat parliament, with
around 9.5 million people expected to take part in the vote. As many as 36 parties
and political associations are running for parliamentary seats, for which they
need at least 3% of the votes. The most likely to win is incumbent PM Kyriakos
Mitsotakis’s party, New Democracy, with 33% of the voting intentions in polls. The
left-of-centre Syriza party, headed by Alexis Tsipras, is predicted to carry
26% of the votes. A novelty in this election is the scrapping of the 50-seat
bonus for the winning party. Unless the parties manage to form a new
government, early elections will be held in July, with a return to the previous
bonus system. (AMP)