April 6, 2017 UPDATE

Bucharest hosts international conference on relations between majority and opposition in democracies

Newsroom, 06.04.2017, 19:44

CONFERENCE – The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, said on Thursday that in a strong democratic society the majority and opposition must join forces for the benefit of the people. Iohannis made this statement at an international conference on The Interaction between political majority and opposition, in a democracy, organised in Bucharest by the Presidential Administration and the Venice Commission, with support from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Until Friday, the event will give the nearly 100 participants a platform to discuss the most difficult aspects of the interaction between power and opposition. At the end of the conference, the Venice Commission will draw up a report laying down core lines of action for how the political majority should interact with the opposition.

DEFENCE – The Romanian Defence Minister, Gabriel Les, announced on Thursday that the plan to equip the Romanian Army would be finalised within about a month. In an interview to Radio Romania, he said the Army would receive attack and transport helicopters, as well as new armoured carriers, given that the ones used at present are around 30 years old. The Ministry wants the national defence industry to be involved in all the Army equipping projects, Les added.

DRAFT LAW – The draft law on the unified pay scales for the public sector was presented on Thursday in the leading structure of the Social Democratic Party, the main partner in the ruling coalition, and will be promoted as an initiative of the MPs in the ruling coalition. The president of the Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea, said this would step up the endorsement procedure, so as to allow some of the pay rises in the bill to take effect as of July 1. Under the draft law, salaries will be gradually raised in the next 5 years, and will be calculated based on the national minimum wage. We have more on this after the news.

CHEMICAL ATTACK – Over 85 people, including 30 children, were killed in the alleged chemical attack perpetrated in north-western Syria, according to a report made public on Thursday by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Also on Thursday, Turkey, which is hosting scores of the wounded, confirmed the use of chemical weapons. The nature of the substances has not been officially identified, but the World Health Organisation said some victims had symptoms associated with exposure to a category of neurotoxins. Several states, including France and the UK, claim that President Assads regime is behind the attack, but the latter denies the accusations. The Syrian civil war started in 2011 and killed 320,000 people.