April 19, 2016 UPDATE
For a roundup of domestic and international events, click here.
România Internațional, 19.04.2016, 12:15
SCHENGEN — Romania and Bulgaria comply with Schengen accession criteria, European Commission president Jean Claude Junker said on Tuesday. The EU official said the Commission supported the accession of the two states to the travel-free area, and that their rights must be acknowledged. Originally slated for March 2011, Romania’s Schengen accession was repeatedly postponed, amidst concerns expressed by some Member States with respect to the reform of the judiciary and the fight against corruption in this country. The authorities in Bucharest on the other hand claim Bucharest has met all technical accession criteria.
BANKING — The Romanian finance sector must be diversified, the deputy governor of the National Bank of Romania, Bogdan Olteanu said on Tuesday. Olteanu believes savings banks are overemphasized at present, to the detriment of investment banks, also impacting SMEs. Consequently, Olteanu argues, the only available option for startups is to resort to investment funds. To attract this sort of financing, Romania must be financially, politically and judicially stable, the deputy governor of the National Bank went on to say.
MINISTER — The newly appointed labor minister, Dragos Paslaru, takes up his term under difficult circumstances, with trade unions protesting the planned emergency executive order on state wages. On Monday, 200 teachers protested outside the government building, demanding a 35% raise.
MEETING — Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu on Tuesday met in Bucharest with the president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Saber Chowdhury. On this occasion, Minister Comanescu praised the role of the organization as a global forum for dialogue, cooperation and parliamentary action. Additionally, Comanescu said Romania has been an affiliate of UIP for 125 years. The UIP president hailed the remarkable contribution of Romanian personalities to the activity of the organization. At present, Parliaments from 162 countries are affiliated to the UIP, an organisation set up in 1889.
BLACK SEA — Romanian Defence Minister Mihnea Motoc on Tuesday called on his British counterpart Michael Fallon for his support for Bucharest’s efforts to consolidate NATO’s presence in the Black Sea. According to a Ministry release, the agenda for talks also focused on bilateral cooperation in the field of defence and the NATO summit in Warsaw in July. The two officials also discussed about Minister Motoc’s scheduled visit to Great Britain in May. The meeting was held in Luxembourg on the sidelines of the Foreign Affairs Council meeting.
INVENTION — Romania got 19 gold medals, 14 silver medals, two bronze medals, and 30 special prizes at the Geneva International Invention Salon. Romanian teams submitted 30 inventions, including a method to recycle safety glass and a device to pinpoint cancer cells. Over 1,000 inventions from 40 countries competed in the event, half of them from Asia, predominantly from China. Last year, Romania got 28 medals. Two years ago, the Grand Prize was won by a Swiss company for technology created by a team of Romanian researchers.
CINEMA — The 12th edition of the Bucharest International Film Festival is running from Monday to Sunday. The festival consists of 15 movie screenings for films from Spain, France, the US, Iran, Romania, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Argentina and Bulgaria. This year’s novelty is the “Venice” section outside the official competition, offering screenings of five films selected for the Italian festival, including Pablo Trapero’s The Clan, which scooped the Silver Lion at the 2015 edition.
(Translated by V. Palcu & C. Cotoiu)
