9 September, 2017 UPDATE

Romania officially launches bid to host London-based European Medicines Agency after Brexit.

Newsroom, 09.09.2017, 18:31

EU
agency relocation. Romania has officially launched its bid to host the European
Medicines Agency currently based in London and which will be relocated after
Brexit. The healthcare minister Florian Bodog says Romania has a 15-year
experience in the field and skilled labour in the form of 18,000 highly
qualified researchers. France, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary and Bulgaria also
offered to host the European Medicines Agency. The European Commission will
assess the bids by September 15 before announcing its final decision on the
sidelines of the General Affairs Council in November. The European Medicines
Agency is a decentralised agency of the European Union responsible for the scientific evaluation, supervision and safety monitoring of medicines in
the EU.

Hungary-Romania. Hungary has reiterated its decision not
to support Romania’s and Croatia’s accession to the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD). The reasons given are a move by the
Romanian authorities to close the Roman-Catholic Theological College in Targu
Mures in Romania’s case and a dispute over an investment of the Hungarian
company MOL in Croatia in the latter case. The activity of the
Hungarian-language school in Targu Mures was suspended because the institution
no longer existed following a final court ruling. The foreign ministry in Bucharest
said any educational institution in Romania must respect, without exception,
the Romanian legislation, which does not discriminate on ethnic and religious
grounds. Any attempt to present the situation at the school in Targu Mures as a
failure to respect the rights of ethnic minorities is inaccurate, the Romanian
authorities also said, pointing out that there are many educational
institutions in Romania that demonstrate the Romanian state ensures the right
of the ethnic Hungarian minority to learn and be taught in its mother
tongue.

Ethnic minorities. The Romanian authorities have again
called on Ukraine to re-examine its new education law that drastically
restricts education in the mother tongue for ethnic minorities. Romania’s
foreign minister Teodor Melescanu said after a telephone conversation with his
Ukrainian counterpart Pavlo Klimkin that the situation can only be solved
during a meeting between the education ministers of the two states. Under the
legislative changes adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament, teaching in high
schools and universities is to be done only in the state language, while
teaching in the mother tongue of ethnic minorities will only be provided in
nurseries and primary schools. Almost half a million ethnic Romanians live in the
neighbouring Ukraine, mostly in the eastern Romanian territories annexed in
1940 after an ultimatum by the former Soviet Union and inherited by Ukraine as
a successor state in 1991.

First aid. The Romanian Red Cross on Saturday
held the biggest free first aid course in the country on World First Aid Day.
1,000 people from 41 county capitals and Bucharest’s six sectors took part in
the 6-hour course, being taught different first aid techniques. The theme of
the course was how to provide first aid in the case of domestic accidents that
may cause injuries and even death.

Migrants. Two boats carrying migrants were intercepted by the
Romanian Coast Guard while drifting close to the Black Sea shores. One of the
boats was guided towards Bulgaria, while the second was escorted to the port of
Mangalia. The authorities requested that a special tent be put in place for the
migrants by the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations.

US Open. The
Romanian-Dutch pair Horia
Tecau and Jean-Julien Rojer won the men’s doubles title at the US Open,
defeating the all-Spanish pair Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez in straight sets.
This is Tecau and Rojer’s second Grand Slam title after winning their first at
Wimbledon in 2015. Tecau also played the mixed doubles semifinals together with
the American player Coco Vandeweghe, but lost to the Swiss-British pair Martina Hingis and Jamie Murray.