June 11, 2022 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 11.06.2022, 18:50

Constitutional Court.
Marian Enache was elected on Saturday president of the Constitutional Court of
Romania for a three-year term. The vote was secret and was held after three new
judges were sworn in before president Klaus Iohannis. Enache was first
appointed a Constitutional Court judge by the Senate in 2016, having previously
served as a member of Parliament from the Social Democratic Party and an
ambassador to the Republic of Moldova between 1993 and 1996. During the
swearing in ceremony, president Klaus Iohannis wished the three new judges, who
will serve for 9 years, to make sure the Constitution is respected and act as a
factor of equilibrium in Romanian society.

Extradition. Former Romanian tourism minister Elena Udrea will be
extradited from Bulgaria following a ruling by a Sofia court saying there is no
evidence that her human rights and liberties would be violated on her return to
Romania as she had claimed. The Bulgarian court ruling also showed there is no
question mark over the way in which Romanian prosecutors investigated her case,
which Udrea said was politically motivated. She left the country on 7th
April before the Supreme Court was about to issue a final sentence convicting
her to 6 years in prison for bribe taking and abuse of office. She is on trial
in two other cases.

Benefits. The Romanian Postal Service has begun the distribution of
cards for the payment of social vouchers worth around 50 euros, with payment to
be made after all cards have been distributed, from 20th June, said
prime minister Nicolae Ciucă on the government’s Facebook page. Three million
people, including pensioners, persons with disabilities, families with low
incomes and homeless people will benefit from these vouchers once every two
months, which they can use to buy food. The total value is some 626 million
euros and will be granted in four tranches until the end of the year.

Ukraine. The European Commission will
finalise its assessment of Ukraine’s bid to obtain the status of EU candidate
country by next week, said the European Commission president Ursula von der
Leyen. She made this statement on a trip to Kyiv to meet president Volodymyr
Zelensky, who said a positive answer would be a historic moment for Europe. On the ground, the situation has become dramatic in the Azov Sea
port of Mariupol, where over 20,000 inhabitants were killed and the lack of
hygienic conditions and food has increased the risk of epidemics, especially
dysentery and cholera. The city’s mayor called on the United Nations and the
Red Cross to create a humanitarian corridor to evacuate the civilians. The
fighting continues in the east, with Ukrainian officials requesting more help
from the West, including faster deliveries of weapons to halt the advance of
the better equipped Russian forces.

Visit.
French president Emmanuel Macron is travelling to Bucharest on Tuesday to
express France’s solidarity with its European allies most exposed to the war in
Ukraine, said the French president’s office. He is expected to visit the French
troops stationed in Cincu, in the centre. The NATO Battle
Group Forward Presence was created in May in Romania. The group is led by
France, which also has an air defence component in Romania. This is the third
visit to Romania by the French president, and the first since winning his
second term on 24th April. On Wednesday, he will travel to the
neighbouring Republic of Moldova to reiterate support for this country affected
by the war in Ukraine. Macron has tried to maintain a dialogue with Vladimir
Putin since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, but his position has come
under repeated criticism from some European partners, who see his engagement
with Putin as undermining efforts to bring the Russian president to the negotiation
table. (CM)