April 1, 2016 UPDATE
For a roundup of domestic and international events, click here.
România Internațional, 01.04.2016, 12:15
NUCLEAR SECURITY – US President Barack Obama on Friday warned that the nuclear terrorist threat by jihadist groups continues to loom over the international community, despite global counteraction. In the opening of the nuclear summit in Washington, Obama said that although the risk has been significantly lowered, nuclear terrorism continues to evolve. Terrorist will find it harder and harder to obtain nuclear material, much owing to a key treaty ratified in over 102 states. Representing Romania in Washington was president Klaus Iohannis.
NOMINATION — Romanian Justice Minister on Friday nominated Augustin Lazar for the position of Prosecutor General of the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The proposal has been submitted to the Superior Council of Magistracy. Under the law, the Romanian President appoints the Prosecutor General, after being proposed by the Justice Minister and green-lighted by the Superior Council of Magistracy. Augustin Lazar is at present Prosecutor General with the Alba Iulia Prosecutor’s Office. The office of prosecutor general has been left vacant after Tiberiu Nitu resigned on February 2, 4 months before his mandate expired, against the backdrop of an investigation into the illegal use of motorcades.
PROTEST – Family doctors in Romania are protesting again, unhappy with the fact that medical services cannot be reimbursed, as the framework agreement with the National Health Insurance Agency was not extended. Doctors have announced they will not issue any subsidised prescriptions and medical letters. They are unhappy with the under funding of their sector and with the fact that they are forced to pay from their own pockets the errors produced by the health card. Doctors threaten that if their claims are not solved, within 10 days they will start a warning strike. Last week, family doctors picketed the headquarters of the Health Ministry.
ELECTIONS IN MOLDOVA — Presidential elections will be held on October 30 in the Republic of Moldova under a draft law voted on Friday by the Moldovan Parliament. The election campaign will start on July 30. The mandate of the current head of state, Nicolae Timofti will expire on March 23, but he will remain interim president until the elections. The next president will be voted directly by Moldovan citizens, after the Constitutional Court last month nulified a 2000 provision stipulating that Parliament must elect the head of state.
COMMEMORATION — The village of Fantana Alba in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, paid an homage to the victims of the April 1, 1941 massacre, when over 2,000 Romanians were executed by Soviet troops for wanting to take refuge in Northern Bukovina, in Romania at the time. Attending the event, Minister Delegate for Romanians Worldwide Dan Stoenescu said this painful moment would linger in the collective memory of Romanians and Ukrainians. Stoenescu went on to say that history decided that important communities of the two countries shoud live on both sides of the border. Dan Stoenescu said it was the duty of Romania and Ukraine to work together to create the premises of a good cohabitation, respect and trust, contributing to the much-needed increase of stability in this part of Europe.
INVESTIGATION — A criminal investigation was opened in Bucharest after two Muslim young girls wearing the Islamic veil were assaulted on a street in District 2. According to the local police, the young women, aged 16 and 18, were assaulted by a group of five unknown individuals, who pulled off their veils and physically assaulted them. The victims didn’t need medical care and didn’t file a complaint, but the police have referred the matter to itself. Romania is home to over 65,000 Muslim people, most of whom are of Tartar and Turkish origin.
CURRENCY – In January — March 2016, Romania’s national currency, the leu, managed to appreciate against 13 currencies out of the 16 most important in the region, but also against the Euro, the USD and the Swiss Franc. The Romanian currency thus registered its best January — March period in the last years. Euro lost 1.1% to the leu, from 4.52 lei, the reference rate established by the National Bank of Romania in its last session in December 2015, to 4.47 lei, as set on Thursday. The USD lost 5% to the leu in the first quarter of the year, after depreciated against the EU against the background of cautious expectations regarding the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve, the most powerful central bank in the world.
TURKEY – The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, currently on a visit to Washington, has made an appeal to the European countries to support his government’s fight against the Kurdish separatists. On Thursday, Turkey was hit again by a suicide attack, the third in less than three weeks, claimed by the PKK. A car bomb exploded in the town of Diyarbakir, in the south-east, killing 70 policemen and wounding 27 people, half of them also policemen.
