December 16, 2013 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news.
România Internațional, 16.12.2013, 19:54
The European Union is ready to provide Israelis and Palestinians with “unprecedented” financial, political and security assistance and a significant upgrade in ties if the two parties reach a peace agreement, the union’s foreign ministers announced Monday. “The EU will provide an unprecedented package of European political, economic and security support to both parties in the context of a final status agreement,” a statement from the council read.
Senator, Toni Grebla, from the ruling Social Democratic Party, was appointed judge at Romania’s Constitutional Court following the Senate’s vote on Monday. Grebla is the Social Democrats’ second proposal for the Constitutional Court after Lucian Bolcas, who withdraw from the race following accusations of anti-Semitism. Toni Grebla will replace Constitutional Court judge Iulia Motoc who will represent Romania at the European Court of Human Rights.
Catalin Predoiu is the candidate of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, for the presidential elections in 2014. The announcement was made on Monday by the Liberal Democrats’ president Vasile Blaga, after elections had been held within the party last week. Predoiu is the third candidate announced officially for next year’s presidential elections after Crin Antonescu, from the ruling Social Liberal Union and Mihai Razvan Ungureanu from the Civic Force.
Romanian Minister of Agriculture Daniel Constantin started on Monday a three-day visit to the Republic of Moldova, to attend informal consultations in preparation for the European regional conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization, taking part in Bucharest next year. He is talking there with the deputy regional representative of the organization, Tony Alonzi, and with the future regional representative for Europe and Central Asia, Vladimir Rakhmanin. The Romanian minister will also be meeting his counterpart in Chisinau, Vasile Bumacov, at the official launch of a major wine exhibition.
Timisoara, the city where the Romanian 1989 Revolution started, began celebrating the 24th anniversary of that event. The anti-communist revolt began on December 16th, when youth started protesting against abuses perpetrated by the authorities. The revolution spread quickly across the country, and culminated with dictator Ceausescu’s flight from Bucharest.
Romania’s national women’s handball team failed to qualify to the quarterfinals of the world championships in Serbia, after being narrowly defeated by Poland on Sunday, 31 to 29. Poland will be going to France to play in the quarterfinals. We recall that Romania holds three world titles, gold in 1962, and silver in 1973 and 2005. It is also the only country to attend the final stages of every world championship since 2005.
