24 July, 2019

A roundup of the main stories in Romania today.

Newsroom, 24.07.2019, 14:00

Appointments. Romanian president Klaus
Iohannis on Wednesday signed the appointment of Nicolae Moga as interior
minister and of Ramona Manescu as foreign minister, the president’s office has
announced. Moga was a senator for Constanta and occupied the position of
vice-president of the Senate in the Permanent Bureau. Manescu joined the
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, in the ruling coalition, in 2017. Earlier,
she held the position of transport minister. An MEP since 2007, she was also a
coordinator in the Regional Development Commission and a substitute member of
the Employment and Social Affairs Commission. Also on Wednesday, the president
took note of the resignation of Carmen Dan as interior minister and signed the
decree for the revocation
of Teodor Melescanu as foreign minister. In another decree, Mihai Fifor was
appointed deputy prime minister in charge of the implementation of Romania’s
strategic partnerships. The new ministers have been sworn in.

Elections. The leadership of the
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats have met today to establish their strategy
for the upcoming presidential elections in November. They will appoint their
own candidate, namely their leader and Senate speaker, Calin Popescu Tariceanu.
They also tried to convince their ruling partner, the Social Democratic Party,
to support Tariceanu, but the Social Democrats chose their own candidate, prime
minister Viorica Dancila. Unhappy with the situation, some of the leaders of
the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats have threatened to leave the government
coalition.

Peace keeping. Bucharest will support the United
Nations in assisting the government of the Republic of Mali to continue the
application of the peace agreement and will deploy a Romanian detachment of
four helicopters. The latter was evaluated by a committee from the UN peace
keeping operations department. According to the Romanian chief of staff,
general Nicolae Ciuca, the mission under the UN mandate will begin in October
and will last one year. The four helicopters will be used for medical
evacuation and the transport of people and materials. 120 military will also be
taking part, including chief of staff personnel, pilots, on-board crew and
maintenance crew.

Moldova. The
European Commission has resumed payment of financial assistance to the Republic
of Moldova, an ex-Soviet state with a majority Romanian-speaking population,
which had been granted more than 14 million euros. The payments were previously
suspended for two years following the deterioration of the rule of law
situation in Moldova. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent in Brussels,
the European Union believes that thanks to the decisions taken recently, the
republic’s new pro-European government led by Maia Sandu is meeting the requirements
for the resumption of financial assistance.

Exercise. The 10th
Eurasian Partnership MCM Dive multinational exercise is under way in Constanta
and other maritime areas along the Romanian Black Sea coast. Until Thursday,
tens of military divers from Romania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia and the US
are taking part in explosive device search and identification drills,
conducting open, semi-closed and surface-supplied diving missions and target
searches using underwater drones. This is the only annual multinational
exercise organised in the west part of the Black Sea and designed to improve
the training of military divers from NATO members and the signatories of the
Partnership for Peace.

Football. The Romanian football
champions CFR Cluj are tonight facing the Israeli side Maccabi Tel Aviv at home in the
first leg of the second Champions League preliminary round. On Thursday in the
first leg of the second Europa League round, the Romanian Cup holders, Viitorul Constanta, will be facing
the Belgian side KAA Ghent, vice-champions FCSB are taking on the Armenian side Alashkert FC, while CSU Craiova are facing the Hungarian side Honved Budapest. The return matches are
scheduled for next week. If they qualify, CFR will meet the winner of the match
between the Scottish side Celtic Glasgow and the Estonian champions Nomme
Kalju. Viitorul will meet either AEK Larnaca from Cyprus or Levski Sofia from Bulgaria,
FCSB either Mlada Boleslav from the Czech Republic or Ordabasy Shymkent from Kazakhstan,
while Craiova meet AEK Athens from Greece.