April 30, 2024
A roundup of domestic and world news
Newsroom, 30.04.2025, 13:55
CSAT – The Supreme Council of National Defense (CSAT) convened by the interim president Ilie Bolojan, is meeting today. High on the agenda are, among other things, Romania’s participation in the ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030 and the national defense draft law. The CSAT members are also discussing the national plan regarding military mobility, national security in the hydropower field and the national strategic vision in the space field. The last meeting of the CSAT took place on March 28.
Patriot – Romania will have a new Patriot surface-to-air, long range missile system that replaces the one it supplied to Ukraine last September. The leadership of the Romanian Ministry of National Defense welcomed the decision of the US State Department to approve the sale to Romania of such a system, which includes a radar set and two launch stations. The cost is over 260 million dollars from non-reimbursable external funds. This purchase will strengthen Romania’s capacity to deter aggression in the Black Sea region. On the other hand, the Defense Minister, Angel Tîlvăr, declared today in Craiova (south), that this year’s defense budget amounts to 2.24% of the GDP, of which about 30% will be allocated for the purchase of major state-of-the-art equipment and research activities. Angel Tîlvăr participated, together with the interim president Ilie Bolojan, in the military ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the ‘Dolj’ Craiova Infantry Battalion 20 within the Multinational Brigade South-East.
May 1 – Romanians will have a 4-day mini-holiday starting on May 1st. Most hoteliers on the Black Sea Coast are making the final preparations to welcome the over 50,000 tourists expected during this period. The most popular resorts are, as every year, Mamaia, Vama Veche and Eforie, where performances by well-known Romanian music artists are announced, among other things. Another destination for the May 1st mini-vacation is the Danube Delta. The booking rate of guesthouses is about 80%, similar to that during the Easter holidays. The Danube Delta, declared a Biosphere Reserve in 1990, has an area of over 4 thousand square kilometers, of which 82% is located on the Romanian territory. The Delta is included in the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage List and has over 8,000 species, being famous for its ornithological fauna. Local communities are characterized by ethnic diversity, the main occupations of the people living in the Danube Delta localities being fishing, tourism and animal husbandry.
Relics – The relics of the Holy Empress Helena, mother of Saint Constantine the Great, Emperor and Equal-to-the-Apostles, are brought today to Romania, a country with a majority Orthodox population. The relics will be on display in Bucharest for a few hours. Then, a delegation of the Roman Catholic Church dedicated to Saint Helena in Venice, in whose custody the relics are, will set off with the reliquary to the Pantocrator Monastery in Teleorman County (south). The reliquary will remain there until May 8. The Holy Empress Helena was buried in Rome, then her relics were transferred to Constantinople. In 1211, during one of the Crusades, the Western knights took them to Venice, from where they were only taken out for pilgrimage eight centuries later. Romania is the second Orthodox country, after Greece in 2017, where the Saint relics have been brought since her relics were moved in Venice. The event is part of the series of events marking, this year, 100 years since the establishment of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate.
Three Seas Initiative – Via Carpathia is one of the most important infrastructure projects for Romania, and work on this investment on the Romanian territory could begin in the coming months. The announcement was made by the interim president, Ilie Bolojan, who participated on Tuesday in Warsaw, in the summit of the Three Seas Initiative. He stated that the Romanian authorities were currently in the stage of organizing tenders for some sections of Via Carpathia, a network of expressways and motorways that connect northern Europe, from the Baltic Sea, to the south, through Romania, to the Black Sea and also through the Balkans, to the Adriatic Sea. In parallel with the summit, a Business Forum was also held in Warsaw, which was meant to strengthen economic relations and cooperation between the participating states. (LS)
