June 16, 2022 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 16.06.2022, 20:16

UKRAINE On Thursday in Kyiv Romanian president Klaus Iohannis condemned the
fact that Russia is using the cereal exports of Ukraine as a weapon. He made an
appeal to all the major players to make up a coalition of states to support the
international effort for the setting up of the so called ‘blue corridors’ for
the maritime transport through the Black Sea. On Thursday, Ukraine’s president
Volodymyr Zelensky received in Kyiv his Romanian counterpart Klaus Iohannis,
the French president Emmanuel Macron, the German chancellor Olaf Scholz and the
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Zelensky met these officials after they
had visited the city of Irpin, near the capital Kyiv, destroyed by the Russian
bombardments since the onset of the occupation on February 24th. The
European leaders have denounced the unimaginable human tragedy and destruction
in Irpin. The French president has praised the courage of the Ukrainians and
said that Ukraine must resist the Russian attacks and win the war. The German
chancellor said that Russia’s actions in the war in Ukraine are only aimed at
destruction and the Italian Prime Minister has given assurances that everything
will be rebuilt.

COURT Romania’s former Minister of Tourism, Elena Udrea has been
brought to Romania, where she is to serve a mandatory six-year prison sentence
for bribery and abuse of office in the so-called ‘Bute Gala’ case. In April,
Udrea left Romania but was apprehended in Bulgaria on her way to Greece. On
June 10th, the Court of Appeal in Sofia accepted the extradition
request from the Romanian authorities. Udrea is being investigated in another
case on the illegal funding of the election campaign for the presidential
election in 2009. Elena Udrea was a close associate of former Romanian
president Traian Basescu, who has been recently confirmed as a collaborator of
Romania’s former political police the Securitate.

MOTION The Save Romania Union (USR) in opposition has filed a
simple motion against Education Minister, Sorin Cîmpeanu, blaming him for the
high rate of school dropout and the poor exam results. USR claims Minister
Cîmpeanu introduced changes in the way pupils are examined without taking into
account the opinion of stakeholders. The simple motion will be debated next
Monday in the Chamber of Deputies, with a final vote scheduled for
Wednesday.

CFR The Romanian Rail Company (CFR) will
mobilize teams of workers in Galați to start modifying railways so as to allow
freight transports from Ukraine and Moldova to enter Romania. A total of 5
kilometers of rail will be rehabilitated within 60 days to ensure the transport
of grain from Ukraine, disrupted by Russia’s invasion. The company has the
necessary cranes and vehicles allowing the transfer of cars from the broad
gauge used in Russia and ex-Soviet countries to the standard gauge used in the
EU. To simplify the procedure, the Romanian Transport Ministry decided to
render operational a double-gauge track that was decommissioned 30 years ago in
order to allow the freight trains from Moldova to unload the cars directly in
the cargo boats docked in Danube River ports.

(bill)