April 24, 2015 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news.
România Internațional, 24.04.2015, 12:15
The Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said on Friday that it was in the best interest of both Romania and Bulgaria for Serbia to become a EU member and that both countries supported this project “fully and unconditionally”. These statement comes after a meeting in Craiova, south-eastern Romania, of PM Victor Ponta, the Bulgarian PM Boiko Borisov and the Serbian PM Alexandar Vucici, which preceded a joint meeting of the Romanian and Bulgarian governments, aimed at consolidating bilateral dialog and coordination of European and regional positions. Bucharest and Sofia have agreed, among others, to boost cooperation in order to promote their mutual interests in the field of defence and security within NATO and the EU. Romania and Bulgaria have also agreed to also boost cooperation through European and Euro Atlantic mechanisms against new global threats such as terrorism, cross-border crime, cyber crime, human and drug trafficking, illegal migration, money laundering and corruption. Last March the two governments met in Ruse, Bulgaria, a meeting also attended by the Serbian prime minister.
Acknowledging the ordeal that the Armenian people went through and commemorating the victims is something that all of us must do so that we can learn from the lessons of the past, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said on Friday when 100 years since the tragedy were marked. In his turn, US President Barack Obama said that the massacre of the Armenians was a “terrible carnage”, France Press reports. According to the news agency Barack Obama once again avoided calling the 1915 massacre of Armenians genocide. A ceremony took place in Armenia on Friday to mark the commemoration of the 1915 massacre of more than 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks. The Turkish government, however, says that the mass killings do not meet the legal definition of genocide.
On Friday, the Romanian National Institute of Statistics published data according to which the number of Romanian citizens residing in the country was 22.279 million as of January 1, 2015, 0.3% less than a year previous. The urban and female population prevail in numbers. It was noticed that the population is predictably aging more rapidly, with people over 65 higher in number than the population below 14. The average age is 40.7 years.
Romanian Defense Minister Mircea Dusa was on a visit to Turkey to meet his Turkish counterpart, Ismet Yilmaz, to talk about the strategic partnership between the two countries, pleading for enhanced military cooperation. The other main issue on the agenda was the need to keep at bay terrorism, by strengthening NATO’s south eastern flank and enhancing Black Sea security. The two emphasized the excellent relationship the two countries enjoy in terms of common defense.
Romanian tennis player Simona Halep will play against Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, seed no. 4, in the semifinals of the WTA tournament in Stuttgart, worth 731,000 dollars. On Friday Halep beat Italian Sara Errani, while Wozniacki defeated Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain. On Monday Simona Halep will become number 2 in the WTA ranking, as Russia’s Maria Sharapova conceded defeat in the eight finals of the tournament in Stuttgart and will be losing her position
