November 6-12

A look at the headline-making events this past week

Roxana Vasile, 13.11.2016, 13:18

Romanian reactions to the US presidential election

Romanian authorities have hailed Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election and have conveyed messages of congratulations. The Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, underlined Romania’s firm commitment to deepening cooperation with the future American Administration in the field of security and to developing the economic side of the US-Romania Strategic Partnership.

Klaus Iohannis: We are willing to cooperate in order to strengthen the Strategic Partnership between Romania and the US. In the event of changes, they will be in the sense of consolidating this partnership with focus on its three components: politics, security and economy. I have repeatedly said that although the first two components are functioning extremely well, we still need to boost economic cooperation, and maybe this is an opportunity.

The PM Dacian Ciolos has talked about the importance of the bilateral Strategic Partnership saying that increased importance should be attached to developing and boosting economic relations.

Start of election campaign in Romania

Friday marks the start of the election campaign for the December 11 parliamentary elections in Romania. This year’s elections will unfold according to new legislation. The party-list system will be used again, just as in 2004, and there will be new regulations in terms of representation: 1 deputy for 73 thousand inhabitants and 1 senator for 168 thousand people. 6,493 persons have signed up and are currently running for the 466 MP seats.

Most candidates are members of the parties with big chances to enter Parliament, namely the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, the People’s Movement Party, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the Save Romania Union. There are also independent candidates running. A first for this winter’s elections is postal voting for the Romanian citizens who have their residence or domicile outside Romania. Ion Barbu, a director with the Romanian Post National Company, says a first envelope has already arrived from abroad.

Ion Barbu: I can confirm that a voter from Austria has already returned by post the ballot papers received. The Electoral Bureau will keep safe and store the papers until December 11, the date of elections, when they will be opened and counted.

NATO ministerial meeting in Bucharest

The Foreign Ministers of nine NATO members from Central and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania) have this week met in Bucharest. Launched last year upon the initiative of Romania and Poland, the talks held in this format represent a platform for cooperation on issues specific to the region and on the initiatives which the participating countries want to promote within the Alliance. NATO’s Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller also attended the meeting in Bucharest.

At a joint press conference, the Romanian Foreign Minister Lazăr Comănescu said:

We have made similar assessments of the special importance that is to be attached to consolidating the presence of the Alliance in our region. We need to pay increased attention to the southern component of NATO’s eastern flank, given that the biggest challenges in terms of security come from that area.

Romania supports Serbia’s EU accession

Romania has reiterated its support for Serbia’s accession to the European Union on the occasion of the meeting, in the western Romanian city of Timisoara, between the PM Dacian Cioloş and his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vučić.

Dacian Cioloş: It is also in our interest to have an all-European Serbia in the Western Balkans. We have signed an agreement and have assured the Serbian prime minister that he will have Romania’s full support for the reforms Serbia intends to carry out in order to prepare its EU accession.

The two prime ministers have tackled issues related to the consolidation of cooperation including in the fields of labor force, economy and minorities. Several agreements have been signed among which a Protocol on the setting up of common patrols along the border between the two states and its activities, and another Protocol on preventing and responding to disasters. Also progress has been reported with regard to the common project of building a highway linking Belgrade to Timişoara.

The laser facility in Măgurele introduced to businesspeople and civil society

Early this week, researchers with the National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering in Măgurele presented to businesspeople and civil society the domains in which the high-power laser facility will be used. The government’s representative responsible for the project , Adrian Curaj, has conveyed a message of the PM, which highlights the project’s capacity to generate development and economic growth.

Adrian Curaj: Măgurele is a unique scientific and technological project. It has an extraordinary force to generate development. It is not a project of the region, it is rather a project of Romania because Romania is willing to and can achieve many things. The results obtained at the laser facility in Măgurele will have a strong impact on the Romanian economy in the sense of creating jobs and welfare. I am confident that the scope of this project will make it a priority for each government. Of course, each government can relate to it in its own way, but the importance and scale of the project cannot be ignored.

The facility in Magurele, which aims to host the highest-intensity laser system in the world, is to become operational by 2019.