August 23, 2023

A rounup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 23.08.2023, 13:58

MEETING – The Romanian Interior Minister, Cătălin Predoiu, is meeting, today, in Vienna, with his Austrian counterpart, Gerhard Karner. We remind you that, in spite of having met the technical criteria allowing them to join the Schengen area for many years, Austria blocked the entry of Romania and Bulgaria in 2022. The Netherlands also used its veto right, but only against Bulgaria, with which Romania works in tandem in the process of joining Schengen. Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, motivated this position by saying that many of the illegal migrants who entered his country, came through Romania and Bulgaria, something which European documents do not confirm. According to the European Commission, Bucharest and Sofia have met all the accession criteria and have been waiting to join Schengen for over a decade.





INVESTIGATION – In Romania, an Interior Ministry expert team is looking into a car accident that has taken place in the Black Sea resort of 2 Mai, where a 19-year-old, under the influence of several types of drugs, drove his car into a group of young people, killing two and injuring three. The team tries to establish why the policemen, who had stopped the drugged driver on the road three hours before the accident, let him go without testing him first for consumption of prohibited substances. Also, the Judicial Inspection is looking into ongoing investigations for the possession of prohibited substances and offenses committed under their influence.





MISSION – Romanian firefighters have successfully completed their mission in the Greek town of Alexandroupolis and have been sent on a similar mission to the Dadia area. They are currently trying to put out fires on an area of over three kilometers. The European Commission is also supporting Greece to fight the flames, and has announced that 114 firefighters, 19 vehicles, 7 planes and one helicopter have been sent to put out wildfires in Greece. The situation is also monitored from the space through the Copernicus European satellite program.

BRANCUSI – The famous sculpture “The Kiss” by the great Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi is on display in Bucharest for ten days. The work, part of the collection of the Art Museum in Craiova, is exhibited within Art Safari Love edition, in Bucharest’s Old Center. The masterpiece will be in Bucharest until August 30. “The Kiss” was created in 1907 and was presented to the public for the first time in 1910. It is considered the first modern sculpture of the 20th century.





WHEAT — Romania is the largest soft wheat exporter in the EU in the 2023-2024 season, which started on July 1, 2023, with 1.17 million metric tons exported until August 20 of the current year. Coming second is Poland, with 833,000 tons of wheat exported, followed by Bulgaria, France and Germany. In the 2023-2024 season, the EU’s soft wheat exports decreased, on August 20, to approximately 4 million metric tons, compared to approximately 5 million tons exported in the same period of the 2022-2023 season.





TENNIS – Romanian tennis player Gabriela Ruse defeated Frances Kristina Mladenovic 6-2, 6-2 on Tuesday in the first round of the US Open, the last Grand Slam of the year. Another two Romanians, Jaqueline Cristian and Miriam Bulgaru, were defeated in the first round, while Irina Bara will be up against the German Noma Noha Akugue later today. Sorana Cîrstea, Irina Begu, Ana Bogdan and Patricia Ţig are three other Romanian athletes competing in this year’s US Open. (EE)