December 5, 2019

A roundup of domestic and international news.

Newsroom, 05.12.2019, 13:52

MEETING – Romanian President Klaus Iohannis is today meeting in Bucharest with ambassadors of the EU countries to Romania, on the occasion of a biannual meeting staged by the country holding the EU Council Presidency. Tackled at the meeting hosted by the Embassy of Finland, the current holder of the EU Council Presidency, will be the topics included on the agenda of the European Council meeting due on December 12 and 13 in Brussels, such as fighting climate change, the EU budget, issues concerning the eurozone, the EU’s foreign relations and Brexit. Klaus Iohannis will highlight the importance of maintaining unity and cohesion in the EU. Moreover, Iohannis will talk about the major principles guiding Romania’s actions at EU level, that is the need to avoid division between member states, more convergence and equity and getting the Union closer to its citizens. The Romanian President will emphasize the need to reach an accord on the future EU budget, that should answer the EU’s new priorities, the need for proper finance of traditional policies such as cohesion and the common agricultural policy.

CYBER COALITION – Over 75 Romanian specialists took part, between December 2 and 5, in the Cyber Coalition 2019, the most important cyber defense exercise conducted by NATO and hosted in Tartu, Estonia. 27 Allied & Partner nations came together to train and defend NATO’s networks using simulated scenarios to deter against cyber threats. Cyber Coalition is NATO’s flagship cyber defence exercise and one of the largest in the world. The exercise tests and trains cyber defenders from across the Alliance in their ability to defend NATO and national networks. Experts participate in the planning and execution of the exercise, contributing with operational, technical and legal storylines to develop overall aims of the exercises.

FINANCE – Romanian Finance Minister Florin Citu is attending in Brussels the meetings of the Eurogroup and of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council. According to a release of the Romanian Finance Ministry, the Council is expected to adopt conclusions on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism. The aim is to guide the Commissions future work in this area, in particular to consider ways to harmonise anti-money laundering rules and enhance anti-money laundering supervision across the EU.

OSCE – Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu is today attending the 26th meeting of the Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). On this occasion Minister Aurescu will reiterate Romanias key objectives referring to security and cooperation in Europe. Bogdan Aurescu will attend debates on the prospects of Europes security and will reaffirm Bucharests commitment to observe the values of multilateralism and to support efforts to consolidate the role of the OSCE, the Foreign Ministry reports. On the sidelines of the event, Minister Aurescu will have a series of bilateral meetings with counterparts from participant states.

HANDBALL – Romanian national women’s handball team play their last chance on Friday if they want to advance to the main group stage as part of the ongoing World Championship in Japan. Tomas Ryde’s trainees go against Hungary, in a fixture counting towards Group C’s last round. In the four fixtures they have played so far, Romania have defeated Senegal and Kazakhstan, but lost to Spain and Montenegro. For Romania, a defeat by Hungary means the elimination of the national squad from the qualifying race ahead of the 2020 edition of the Olympic Games. (Translated by Elena Enache)