12 April, 2019 UPDATE

A roundup of the main stories in Romania today.

Newsroom, 12.04.2019, 19:47

Referendum. There is a need for a referendum on
justice and one will ne held May 26th, at the same time as the
elections for the European Parliament, Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said on
Friday after consultations with parliamentary parties. In his opinion,
Romanians are afraid that the ruling Social Democratic Party is placing the
country’s judicial system under its control. The Social Democrats’ representative
at the talks said Parliament would approve the president’s request. The
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats did not attend the talks. On Thursday Klaus
Iohannis also held talks with the opposition parties, the National Liberal
Party, the Save Romania Union and the People’s Movement Party, as well as with
the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the group of national
minorities other than the ethnic Hungarians. The president said these parties
were in favour of a referendum. The consultations were held amid frequent legislative
changes to the judiciary initiated by the parliamentary majority and the
government formed by the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals
and Democrats and which have come under harsh criticism from Romania’s European
partners. The referendum will tackle several issues, such as banning amnesty
and pardon for corruption crimes and banning the issuing of emergency
ordinances in the area of crimes, penalties and the judicial organisation.

EU funding. The European Commission
has approved all projects submitted by the Romanian government, but more could
be done as there are still funds that can be accessed, said the European
commissioner for regional policy Corina Cretu on Friday in Bucharest. She
attended an informal meeting of the ministers responsible for managing the
European funds, in the context of Romania’s presidency of the Council of the
EU. She also said that the European Commission was worried that the
negotiations held so far about the Cohesion Policy did not lead to concrete
results, not even with respect to the provision and content of the future
programming framework. The Romanian presidency of the Council of the EU is held
under the motto Cohesion, a common European value and emphasises the unity
between EU member states and the importance of reducing the economic, social
and territorial gaps within the Union.

Summit. Romania’s prime minister Viorica Dancila on Friday
attended a meeting of the heads of government of Central and Eastern European Countries and China known as
the 16+1 format and held in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Dancila welcomed the launch of
the 16+1 coordination mechanism for small and medium-sized
enterprises and the cooperation initiative to support the development of small
and medium-sized enterprises as part of the China-Central and Eastern Europe
interbank association agreement. The Romanian prime minister also said that the
priorities of the Romanian presidency of the Council of the EU includes issues
of common interest for the states participating in the 16+1 format, such as the
Western Balkans. She said Romania will host the upcoming meeting of the 16+1
dialogue on education to be held on the 17th of May in Timisoara, as
well as the meeting of the 16+1 consortium for higher education, which will
also take place in Timisoara on the 17th and 18th of May.

Foreign investment. According to Romania’s Central Bank, direct foreign investment in
Romania rose by 47% in the first two months of this year up to one billion euros
as compared to 704 million euros in the similar period of 2018. 935 new
enterprises with foreign capital were registered in the first two months of the
year, their number being on the rise against the same period last year. Most foreign
capital comes from the Netherlands, Austria and Germany.

Military exercise. The biggest NATO exercise at the
Black Sea came to an end on Friday in the military port of Constanta, in
south-eastern Romania. Sea Shield 2019 interconnected with the Vigorous Warrior
exercise, whose aim was to test the collaboration between the military and
civilian forces in situations of rescue at sea. The exercise involved the
evacuation of 20 military from the King Ferdinand frigate of the Romanian Navy
in the event of a fire on board. A Puma helicopter of the Romanian Navy took
over the wounded, who were treated on site by specialised medical staff and
then transferred by helicopter and ambulances to the hospitals in Constanta.