December 23, 2022

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 23.12.2022, 13:56

Declassification.
The Romanian Intelligence Service has declassified the file on the involvement
of members of the former Securitate, the communist secret police, in events
connected to the anti-communist revolution of 1989. The documents are available
at www.sri.ro under ‘Declassified files. The
file was part of the inquiries of the
December 1989 Commission set up in 1991 in the Senate and intended to
investigate the events that took place between 1st and 31st
of December 1989 in Bucharest and around the country. The director of the
Romanian Intelligence Service Eduard Hellvig explained the decision to
declassify this archive saying this is the only way to fully condemn communism.
33 years ago, on 16th December 1989, the first protests against the
communist regime broke out in the western city of Timisoara and then spread to other cities in Romania. On 22nd
December, tens of thousands of people took to the streets and forced dictator Nicolae
Ceauşescu to flee together with his wife in a helicopter that took off from the
rooftop of the Central Committee building. They were later caught and executed
on Christmas day after a summary trial. More than 1,000 people were killed and
some 3,000 wounded in the clashes that took place 33 years ago in Romania, the
only country in eastern Europe where the regime change was achieved through
bloodshed.

Ethnic
minorities. The Romanian foreign ministry has taken note of Ukraine’s
Parliament adoption on 13th December of the law on national ethnic
minorities in Ukraine aimed at complementing the Ukrainian legislation on the
protection of members of national ethnic minorities. The Romanian foreign
office regrets that this law was passed without consulting the Venice
Commission, whose opinion would have contributed to ensuring a comprehensive
and clear text from the point of view of European legal standards in the field.
The Romanian foreign ministry says the law maintains a number of provisions
that may have a negative impact, when viewed in relation to the European
standards. Among others, the law contains no provision on the use of the mother
tongue in courts, and maintains the lack of clarity with respect to the
concrete application of the provisions relating to the use of the minorities’
mother tongue in the administration in the areas traditionally inhabited by
persons belonging to ethnic minorities. The Romanian side has constantly
invoked in its contacts with the Ukrainian side the promise made by the
Ukrainian president that ethnic Romanians in Ukraine would enjoy the same
treatment as that enjoyed by ethnic Ukrainians in Romania.

Visit. The Romanian prime minister
Nicolae Ciucă and the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Marcel Ciolacu today attended alongside South
Korea’s prime minister Han Duck-soo a Romania-South Korea business roundtable.
This was the last day of the two Romanian officials’ trip to South Korea. On
Thursday, during talks with the management of the companies Hanwha Aerospace
and Hyundai Rotem, they talked about major projects in key economic sectors like
transports, the defence industry and communications and IT. Also on Thursday,
Ciucă and Ciolacu visited the port of Busan, which ranks second in the world in
terms of cargo handled. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent, emphasis
was placed during talks held with the president of the Busan port authority
Kang Joon-suk on the need for cooperation between Busan and the Romanian port
of Constanţa.

Public order. The Romanian interior ministry has announced special
measures to maintain public order around Christmas and New Year’s. More than
24,000 members of the police, gendarmerie, border police and fire services as
well as other departments will be mobilised every day. The traffic police will
use 290 radar detectors and alcohol devices to detect alcohol consumption and
the intake of other substances banned when driving. As the authorities are
expecting a new wave of tourists in the mountain resorts in Prahova Valley, in
south-central Romania, special mountain gendarmerie troops are also on
stand-by. (CM)