February 26, 2015 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news.
Mihai Pelin, 26.02.2015, 12:15
Germany is one of Romanias most important partners, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday in Berlin. Talking about Romanias accession to the Schengen area Iohannis said that Bucharest was counting on Germanys support to find solutions in this respect. The latest report on the progress made by Romania under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism and the countrys contribution to securing the EUs external border were the main arguments that President Iohannis brought in favour of Romanias Schengen accession. The two officials also tackled regional security issues, with an emphasis on the Ukrainian crisis and also the EU accession of the Republic of Moldova and of the countries in the Western Balkans.
The EU funds absorption continues to be a problem, the Romanian Minister of European Funds, Eugen Teodorovici told Radio Romania on Thursday. Minister Teodorovici explained that the two main problems in this respect were a high risk of these funds being left unspent and the fact that the money was sometimes spent on projects that had little impact on the economy. In another development, the Romanian official announced that the “First Job” program would be launched next month. The program, a first for Romania, addresses young people aged between 16 and 24 who will be offered jobs in the local administration or in companies activating on the Romanian market that are willing to externalise their services.
The European Commission decided on Wednesday to open the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure for Romania and Portugal, two of the 16 EU member states identified as experiencing macroeconomic imbalance in November 2014. The European Commissioner responsible for economic and financial affairs, Pierre Moscovici said Romania was included on this list following the decision of the authorities in Bucharest to suspend the country’s foreign assistance programme in 2015. By mid April, member states are expected to present their new national reform programmes and their stability or convergence programmes, based on which the European Commission will make a new set of country specific recommendations.
The new Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, Chiril Gaburici travelled to Brussels on Thursday, on his first official visit since taking over this post. Moldovas EU accession is high on the agenda of the meetings Gaburici will have with the European Council President Donald Tusk, the European Parliament Speaker Martin Schultz and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini.
As of March 1st, 650 military with the Romanian Special Operation Group will carry out assistance missions of the Afghan security forces as part of the NATO mission. The Romania troops will also ensure the security of the Kandahar airport. Romania thus joins several other states that will continue to assist the Afghan security forces, after NATO and the US withdrew their forces from this country in 2014.
The Romanian-English tennis team made up of Florin Mergea and Dominic Inglot qualified to the men’s doubles semifinals of the ATP tournament in Dubai, after defeating the American brothers Bob and Mike Bryan, 7-6, 2-6, 10-8. In the first semifinal, the Romanian-English team will be up against Pakistan’s Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia. In the other semifinal, the team made up of the Romanian Horia Tecau and the Dutch Jean Julien Rojer will play against the Indian – Canadian team Rohan Bopanna / Daniel Nestor.
