April 10, 2014
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 10.04.2014, 12:00
The Romanian Minister for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Business Environment and Tourism, Florin Nicolae Jianu today will be taking part in the “East Forum Berlin” in Germany. The Forum is a dialogue platform where high-ranking officials worldwide and leading representatives of the business environment hold debates on economic opportunities and challenges. The Forum aims at breaking boundaries for business investments in the region ( Central and eastern Europe), as well as at enhancing relations, with a view to setting up cross-border projects. East Forum Berlin’s inaugural edition was held in 2013, with more than 250 officials from 30 countries taking part in the event.
Six US F-16 fighter jets, starting today and until April 17 will be taking part in a joint US – Romanian Air Forces exercise, to be held in central Romania. More than 200 Romanian military, aircraft pilots and technical staff as well as around 250 US Air Forces military will be taking part in the exercise, whose aim is to enhance cooperation among NATO member states armies, as well as the practice of techniques, tactics and procedures, jointly with the American partner. In another development, the USS Donald Cook warship has already arrived in the Black Sea as part of the US military efforts to support their Eastern-European allies, who have voiced their concern over the Russian military buildup along the Ukrainian border, according to the CNN. The destroyer has remote-controlled missiles on board and is scheduled to start a series of exercises and visits to Black Sea ports.
The National Anti-Corruption Directorate‘s General Prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi today has asked the Senate to give its consent for Social Democrat Senator Ovidiu Marius Isaila to be remanded in custody. Isaila is currently under investigation for influence peddling and abetting forgery in private signed documents. Yesterday, the National Anti-Corruption Directorate prosecutors ruled that the suspended President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mikhail Vlasov should be prosecuted while being remanded in custody for influence peddling. In another move, Romania’s Supreme Court has ruled that a non-custodial investigation should take place in the case of the mayor of Constanta, Radu Mazare, currently facing bribe-taking accusations. Mazare will be placed under judicial control. A similar decision has been taken in the case of Israeli businessman Avraham Morgenstern, also under investigation in the same file, facing bribe-giving accusations. According to Anti-Corruption prosecutors, in 2011 Radu Mazare took 175,000 Euro from Morgenstern, so that the latter’s firm could win the open tender for the building of a housing project district in Constanta.
The European Parliament’s Culture Commission today will be casting their vote for a draft law focusing on the restitution of heritage items smuggled and sold outside the borders of a EU members state. Among other things, the draft law stipulates that restitution procedures should be more flexible, in the case for an item a EU member state classified as a heritage object and which was illegally sold outside that country’s borders. Also, EU member states should increase transparency, also making sure national authorities in the field exchange information and do not encourage the smuggling of art and heritage objects. Several EU member states, such as Italy, Poland, France, Germany and Romania have been seriously affected by the smuggling of worship objects and the illegal export of heritage items. European specialists say that is one of the flipsides of the single market. Statistics provided by the European Commission reveal that each year around 6,000 criminal offences are perpetrated across the European Union, targeting the national heritage, with almost 40,000 worship objects being smuggled.
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine will be granted amnesty, on condition they lay down their weapons and leave the office buildings they have seized, Ukraine’s interim president Oleksandr Turcinov has promised today. Turcinov also said he was ready to sign a decree to that effect. Starting this past Sunday, tension has been mounting in eastern Ukraine as pro-Russian protesters seized several official buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk, two predominantly Russian-speaking cities. In another move, the European Union’s Foreign Policy chief, Catherine Ashton announced that next week she would be taking part in a meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the US Secretary of State John Kerry and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrey Deshchitsya, which is an absolute first since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis.
The Romanian Secretary of State for Strategic Affairs Bogdan Aurescu in Washington has held talks with the US Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, on the latest developments in the eastern neighborhood. According to the Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry, talks mainly focused on the Ukraine crisis, its implication on the Republic of Moldova’s European trail and the prospects of the relationship with the Russian Federation, in the wake of the latter’s military intervention in Ukraine, which caused a major shift in the strategic balance of the Back Sea region. On the same occasion, Aurescu underscored the USA and NATO should secure a more significant presence in the Alliance’s eastern border states, Romania included.
