April 6, 2019

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 06.04.2019, 13:51

REFERENDUM – Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has called a round of consultations
next week regarding the justice referendum. On Thursday the National Liberal Party,
Save Romania Union and People’s Movement Party will start consultations, along
with the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians and national minorities. On
Friday, the Social-Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats
are expected to meet the president. The latter has already declined the
president’s invitation, while Social-Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea said he
won’t attend the consultations, although the party will send a delegation. We
recall that on Thursday, the President announced
that the themes which he would submit to the vote at the May 26 referendum,
held simultaneously with the European Parliament elections, are related to
forbidding amnesty and pardon of corruption crimes and forbidding the
government to pass emergency decrees related to criminal offences and
punishments, correlated with the right of other authorities to notify the
Constitutional Court over such decrees. At the same time the President
criticized the Social-Democrats’ propensity for passing emergency decrees and
has called on the Government to refrain from any such actions until the
referendum. The power in turn accused the head of state of defending election
interests while the Liberals have welcomed the referendum.

ELECTION – The Central Election Bureau has admitted the
list of candidates submitted by nine political parties and independent
candidate for the European Parliament election due in May. According to a
release published on the institution’s website, the Bureau admitted the
candidacies submitted by the Social-Democratic Party, the National Liberal
Party, the 2020 Save Romania Union – Plus Alliance, the Alliance of Liberals
and Democrats, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians and the PRO Romania
party. The candidates of the People’s Movement Party and the United Romania
Party have also been declared eligible. The Bureau also accepted the
independent candidacy of Gregoriana Tudoran, a representative of the Together
for A8 Association. The decision can be challenged by April 12 and the final
result will be announced on April 16. The election campaign starts on April 27
and the election will be held on May 26.

MEETING – The
informal meeting of the EU finance ministers continued in Bucharest on Saturday
against the backdrop of Romania’s holding the EU presidency. The meeting hosted
on Friday under the name Eurogrup, brought together Finance Ministers from the
Eurozone and marked the first working session of the informal meeting of
Finance Ministers and central bank governors, chaired by Romania’s field
minister Eugen Teodorovici. Eurogroup members discussed the banking sector,
inflation and the exchange rate as well as the developments in Greece.
Eurogroup president Mario Centeno said following an analysis of the monitoring
report, Athens has made important steps towards receiving a new financial
assistance package from the EU, worth 1 billion euros.

REPORT – Over a third of the 2,300 alerts on dangerous
products were triggered with respect to toys, a report published by the
European Commission for 2018 reads. Toys are followed by motor vehicles,
clothing, textiles and fashion items. The main risks flagged are chemical risks
and injuries, followed by the choking risk for children. Over half of the total
number of products identified as dangerous originate from China. Cooperation with Chinese authorities in the
product safety field continues to be a priority, the European Commission has
announced.

HANDBALL – Romanian handball champions CSM
Bucharest on Friday lost 31-26 to Metz Handball of France at home in the first
leg of the Champions League quarterfinals. The team from France has thus taken
an important step towards securing qualification to the competition’s Final
Four. For the first time in four years, CSM Bucharest runs the risk of not
qualifying to this phase of the competition. The return leg will be played on
April 13 in Metz. The Final Four tournament will be hosted by Budapest in
Hungary over May 11-12, 2019. CSM won the Champions League in 2016 on its first
appearance in the competition.

TENNIS – Horia Tecau and Florin Mergea will play Benjamin
and Courtney Lock in Piatra Neamt in the doubles match of the Davis Cup match
pitting Romania against Zimbabwe in Group II of Europe-Africa zone. In the
singles, Marius Copil will play Takanyi Garanganga, while Dragos Dima will play
Benjamin Lock. The score is tied 1-all after Dima defeated Garanganga on Friday
while Copil lost to Benjamin Lock. The two teams previously met in 2000 when
Romania won 3-2.

(translated by V. Palcu)