June 2, 2025
A roundup of local and world news
Newsroom, 02.06.2025, 20:21
SUMMIT The Nordic, Baltic and central-European NATO members had pledged to support Ukraine’s accession to that military alliance, the leaders of Poland, Romania and Lithuania said in Vilnius on Monday in the wake of the Summit of B9 and Nordic countries. In a joint statement published on behalf of all the participants in the aforementioned summit, they called for more pressure on Russia, including more sanctions. There is ‘concern regarding long-term security in the Black Sea area, including in the Republic of Moldova’, Nicusor Dan has said, at the end of his first visit abroad since the beginning of his mandate as President of Romania. ‘We need a stronger NATO and Romania will continue to support Ukraine’, Dan says. Regarding the talks about allotting more from the GDP to defence, Dan says that not only do we need to spend more on defence but also to produce military equipment to be able to defend ourselves.’ The head of the Romanian state says the next B9 summit will be held in Bucharest in 2026. The summit in Vilnius had high on the agenda preparations for the NATO Summit in the Hague later this month. The event was also attended by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky and the representatives of NATO allies in the Nordic countries, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland.
PEACE A second round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine was hosted by Istanbul on Monday. The two camps are preparing a new POW swap and Ukraine proposed a new round of talks before the end of this month. The atmosphere in Russia was tense before the onset of the aforementioned peace talks and the pro-Russia bloggers had called on Moscow to retaliate after Ukraine’s most ambitious attack on Sunday against long range Russian bombers in Siberia and other parts of Russia. Moscow’s and Kyiv’s representatives are trying to negotiate a ceasefire and ways of putting an end to the war. The two sides held their first peace talks in May since the Russian invasion in 2022. According to president Zelensky, Kyiv’s position includes an all-out, unconditional ceasefire agreement, the release of prisoners and the repatriation of the children kidnapped from Ukraine. Russia has rejected the idea of an unconditional ceasefire, but hinted at its readiness to accept a ceasefire under some conditions. Russia’s ambassador at the UN, Vasily Nebenzya said that the western powers need to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine during the peace talks and Ukraine put an end to drafting soldiers.
SPORT Romanian gymnast, Ana Maria Barbosu won gold in the floor event and silver in the beam event on Saturday at the European Gymnastics Championship in Leipzig, Germany. The last gold medal in a floor contest of the aforementioned competition was won by Larisa Iordache in 2020. Barbosu reaped all medals for Romania, gold in the floor event, silver in the beam contest and bronze in the all-round event. In another development Mihai Chiruta reaped bronze in the men’s single scull race of the European Rowing Championship in Plovdiv, Bulgaria on Sunday. Romania ended the contest with seven medals, three gold, two silver and two bronze.
TALKS Working groups of experts from PSD, PNL, USR and UDMR, the parties that could form the future government majority, are meeting as of Monday in Bucharest for talks on drawing up a ruling program, which is aimed at curbing the deficit to 7.5% of the GDP, with the main option envisaged being to cut state spending and increase tax collection, before considering tax increases. At the same time, the pro-western parties have announced meetings with the big trade union confederations amid fears among employees that the future measures could reduce living standards. The leaders of the four parties agreed that the next government should be led by a political prime minister, not a technocrat, and that a governing program should be as detailed as possible.
(bill)
