February 17, 2017 UPDATE

Anti-Corruption Directorate orders prosecution of Timisoara mayor and former mayor

Newsroom, 17.02.2017, 20:01

ANTI-CORRUPTION – The Anti-Corruption Directorate ordered the criminal prosecution of the Mayor of Timisoara (in the west), Nicolae Robu, and of his predecessor, Gheorghe Ciuhandu, for abuse of office. Together with other current and former City Hall officials, the two are probed into in a case involving the illegal sale of nationalised buildings. According to prosecutors, between 1996 and 2015, the suspects breached their duties, to the effect that the buildings were not sold to the tenants who were entitled to purchase them, but rather to “influential individuals from Timisoara. Nearly 1,000 buildings have been illegally sold, with the damages incurred by the state reaching and estimated 40 million euros.

EU TALKS – The PM of Romania, Sorin Grindeanu, had meetings in Brussels on Friday with the President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Junker, and the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk. During the talks, Grindeanu said his Cabinet was determined to carry on the fight against corruption. In turn, the European officials emphasised the need to consolidate the significant progress in the countrys anti-corruption efforts and to guarantee their irreversibility. The agenda of talks also included the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, through which the European Commission monitors the judicial field in Romania, the priorities of the new Romanian Government, Romanias presidency of the EU Council in the first half of 2019, and current European topics. The Romanian Prime Ministers two-day visit also included meetings with the first vice-president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, and the vice-president of the European Commission Jirki Katainen.

TENNIS – The Romanian Horia Tecău and the Dutch Jean-Julien Rojer will play on Saturday the doubles semi-finals of the Rotterdam tournament in the Netherlands, which has over 1.7 million euros in total prize money. They will be facing the Dutch Wesley Koolhof and Matwe Middelkoop. In the quarter-finals, Tecău and Rojer outplayed Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez of Spain, seeded 2nd in the tournament, 6-4 / 6-4. The Romanian-Dutch pair won the Rotterdam tournament in 2015.

(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)