April 6, 2017
Romania hosts democracy conference, Ruling party debates salary law
România Internațional, 06.04.2017, 14:10
CONFERENCE – The Romanian Presidency and the Venice Commission, with support from the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly are holding on Thursday and Friday in Bucharest an international conference called ‘Interaction Between a Political Majority and the Opposition in a Democracy’. The event offers the approximately 100 participants a platform for debate of the most difficult aspects of that interaction. At the same time, it plans to identify means by which this interaction can become more effective, to the benefit of European democracies and their citizens. At the end of the conference, the Venice Commission will issue a report on the main directions they recommend for a majority to interact with the opposition.
WAGES – The draft law on unitary salaries for state employees in Romania is being presented today to the leadership of the Social Democratic Party, the main party in the ruling coalition in Romania, and will be introduced in Parliament on behalf of that formation. Social Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea said that this would accelerate the procedure of passing it, so that some wage raises could come into effect on July 1st. According to the bill, income is set to rise over the next five years, calculated based on the minimum wage. Stay tuned for more after the news.
TENNIS – Romanian tennis player Irina Begu, 33rd seeded, qualified to the eighth finals in Charleston, the US, with 700,000 dollars in prize money. She has dealt a crushing 3 set defeat to Slovakian player Kristina Kucova, 81st seeded. In the eighth finals, Begu will play against Samantha Stosur, 6th favorite in the tour.
BRATISLAVA – Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu goes on Thursday and Friday on an official visit to Bratislava, invited by his counterpart, Miroslav Lajčák. He is also set to meet President Andrej Kiska, as well as the head of the Slovakia-Romania Friendship Group in Parliament. The foreign minister will be emphasizing the importance of consolidating political and diplomatic dialog, as well as high level contact at the level of parliaments, in an attempt to maximize economic exchange. The agenda will also include issues of common interest, such as the future of Europe, the Brexit, energy security, as well as the migration crisis.
WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump receives today Chinese President Xi Jinping, who starts his official visit to Washington. The main topics will be trade relations and the North Korean nuclear program. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent to Washington, while there are no expectation for the first meeting of the two leaders to settle the complicated differences between the two countries, experts say that it could help establish a working relationship. In his presidential campaign, Donald Trump threatened to point the finger at China as a currency manipulator, and to set a 45% tariff on Chinese goods. Experts expect President Xi Jinping to placate President Trump in an attempt to present a positive picture of the bilateral relation between the two countries.
UNITED NATIONS – US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley warned that, unless the UN takes measures, Washington is ready to take military action in Syria. In an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Wednesday, the US, the UK and France condemned the chemical attack launched by the al-Assad regime on Tuesday in the northwest of Syria, which left dozens dead. The opinion was shared by Russia, which said that a complex and objective analysis was needed. The regime in Damascus denied involvement. Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mikdad said that the Syrian armed forces have no such weapons. This chemical attack is the second worst since the beginning of the conflict in Syria, which started in 2011 and has left over 320,000 dead.
