December 23, 2016
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 23.12.2016, 12:05
PM DESIGNATION Romanias President Klaus Iohannis has postponed until after Christmas the designation of a new Prime Minister. He made the announcement after consultations held on Wednesday and Thursday with representatives of the political parties that made it to Parliament following December 11th legislative elections. The coalition made up of the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats has proposed for the office of prime-minister the Social Democrat Sevil Shhaideh, a former Development Minister, and the proposal of the Peoples Movement Party was Eugen Tomac. The National Liberal Party and the Save Romania Union have announced they will stay in the opposition and will not support a government formed around the Social Democratic Party. The Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania has signed a parliamentary collaboration agreement with the majority coalition.
COMMEMORATION A mass commemorating the martyr heroes of the 1989 anti-Communist revolution in Romania was held in the morning at the Otopeni Airport near Bucharest. 27 years ago, 40 of the 82 soldiers sent to enhance security at the Otopeni airport died, killed by the airport local security, who thought they were terrorists. 8 civilian airport employees, who were on their way to work by bus were also killed in the accidental shooting. The anti-Communist revolt started 27 years ago in Timisoara, western Romania, to then quickly spread all across the country. Over December 23-25, dictators Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were caught, tried and executed. More than 1,000 people died in the revolution, and some 3,400 were wounded. Romania was the only country in the Eastern Bloc where the regime was changed violently and its communist leaders were executed.
CORRUPTION In Romania, the former Social – Democrat MP Sebastian Ghita, prosecuted for corruption and subject to legal restrictions pending trial, has disappeared and is now wanted by authorities. The Interior Minister Dragos Tudorache has called on the head of the police to carry out an internal investigation into the circumstances under which Ghita disappeared. The former MP, a close collaborator of the former Prime Minister Victor Ponta, is banned from leaving the country and must present himself to the police once a week. He is being prosecuted, among other things, for bribe-giving, influence peddling, money laundering and blackmail.
SECURITY The Romanian Interior Ministry has announced that some 22,000 police, fire fighters and gendarmes will be mobilised every day across Romania during the Christmas holidays. Also, the border police will operate at full capacity in order to reduce the waiting time for those who travel across the border. In Romanias mountain resorts, some 200 gendarmes will join the existing squads in order to be able to rapidly intervene should the tourists need it, the Interior Ministry has also stated.
BERLIN ATTACK The suspected perpetrator of the Berlin attack, the 24 year old Tunisian Anis Amri, was shot dead last night by the Milan police, the Italian Interior Ministry has announced. An international warrant had been issued for his arrest. He was fatally shot after firing at police who had stopped his car for a routine identity check. The Tunisian had connections with members of the Islamic State terrorist organisation, which claimed the attack in Berlin. We recall that the perpetrator drove a truck into a packed Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, on Monday, killing 12 people and injuring 48. In another move, on Thursday night, German police officers arrested two men suspected of having planned an attack on a shopping centre in Oberhausen, in the west, one of the largest shopping areas in Germany.
MOLDOVA The pro-Russia socialist Igor Dodon, the President – Elect of the Republic of Moldova, the former Soviet state with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population, is to be invested today during a solemn Parliament session. Also today, the capital Chisinau is likely to host protest rallies staged in the centre, where Dodon is expected to lay flowers. The new president has announced that his first visit abroad will be to Moscow, where he will try to resume the strategic partnership with the Russian Federation. Domestically, Igor Dodon will oppose the pro-Europe government in Chisianu and will try to dissolve Parliament in order to force early parliamentary elections. During his election campaign, Dodon said that his first decree would annul a law endorsed by parliament, under which the loan granted to the banking system in 2014 as a result of a 1 billion dollars embezzlement was turned into state debt. His announced priorities include banning the organisations that plead for the unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania.
