August 29, 2018 UPDATE

Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 29.08.2018, 19:16

DEFENCE Romanian Defence Minister Mihai
Fifor has joined his EU counterparts for an informal meeting in Vienna staged
under the Austrian presidency of the EU Council on Wednesday and Thursday.
According to the Defence Ministry in Bucharest, the participants will be
discussing the EU’s commitment to security in the Western Balkans. According to
the same sources the next meeting in the same format is due in Bucharest in
January, when Romania will be holding the EU’s half-yearly presidency.

ADMISSION All the 6 applicants for the
position of Romania’s Chief Anti-corruption prosecutor have been declared
admitted and are to be interviewed by Justice Minister Tudorel Toader next week,
sources with the Justice Ministry announced on Wednesday. According to the same
sources, the results of the selection for the head of the country’s main
Anti-corruption Agency (DNA) are to be made public on September 6th.
The Justice Minister’s nominee is to be endorsed by the Supreme Court of
Magistracy and by the country’s president. We recall the former DNA head, Laura
Codruta Kovesi was sacked in July through a presidential decree forced by a
decision made by the country’s Constitutional Court.

FOOTBALL Romania’s football champions
and vice-champions, CFR Cluj and FCSB respectively, will be playing on their
own ground the return games in the Europa League’s play-off. CFR will be up
against Dudelange of Luxembourg after their surprising two-nil defeat in the
first round, while FCSB will be playing Rapid Vienna. The Austrians have
secured a three-one win in the first round. Unless neither of the two sides manages
to qualify, Romania will be left without representation in Europe’s football competitions.

SWINE FEVER Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis
has called on the Government to urgently adopt all measures to contain the
number of African swine fever outbreaks and to offer compensations to the
affected producers, as soon as possible. Because of the mismanagement of this
crisis situation, the government has pushed local producers to the brink of
bankruptcy, the President writes in a communiqué. According to him, tens of
million of Euros in losses have already been registered, thousands of jobs have
slashed and the country missed on significant trade opportunities. At present
there are over 700 hotbeds in Romania, in 10 counties, mostly in the south-east
and north-west. Hundreds of thousands of
pigs have been slaughtered because the virus was spreading at a fast pace,
including in a pig farm in Braila, in the south-east, the largest in Romania
and the second largest in Europe.

(translated by bill)