June 20, 2022 UPDATE
A roundup of local and international news.
Newsroom, 20.06.2022, 19:20
SUMMIT – Romaniaan president, Klaus Iohannis, announced on Monday that his country will again host, in 2023, the Three Seas Initiative Summit and its Business Forum. Hosting these events next year makes the Black Sea the centre of the Initiative, just like in 2018, when Romania also hosted them, Iohannis said. He made these statements in Riga, Latvia, where he attended this year’s Three Seas Initiative Summit, a political platform at presidential level that brings together 12 EU Member States located between the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas. President Klaus Iohannis reiterated Romanias support for Ukraine at both bilateral and multilateral levels.
VISIT — Romanian PM Nicolae Ciuca is on a two-day visit to the United Arab Emirates where he was received by the country’s president, Sheik Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The visit takes place ahead of the second session of the Cooperation Committee between the Romanian Government and the UAE Government, to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday. The visit aims to consolidate bilateral dialogue at political, economic and sectoral level, between the two countries. Talks will also include topics of regional and international interest.
REFUGEES — Almost 59,000 people from 70 countries have applied for asylum in Romania since 1991 up to present, according to a release by the General Immigration Inspectorate on the occasion of the World Refugee Day marked on Monday. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than 4,300 Ukrainian citizens have applied for asylum in Romania and over 40,000 have received stay permits.
COMMEMORATION – Defense Minister Vasile Dîncu on Monday attended the unveiling of a monument devoted to the Romanian military who died in World War I and were burried in Italy. The ceremony was hosted by the city of Bolzano, in the northern. Minister Dîncu also met with his Italian counterpart, Lorenzo Guerini.
POLITICS – The Social-Democrat leader Marcel Ciolacu on Monday proposed that the ruling coalition made up of the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania should put a cap on the fuel price. He also insisted on the urgency of modifying the Fiscal Code in spite the firm opposition expressed, among others, by the Liberal PM Nicolae Ciuca. Ciolacu, who is also speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, has said PSD is tired of having its economic measures contested by insignificant people within the coalition. In turn, Senate Speaker, the Liberal Florin Citu, has said that capping the profit margin or the prices is a tool that reminds of the communist system. He has also said it was not surprising that it is the PSD, a descendant of the communist party, the one that comes up with such proposals.
STATEMENT – EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday said that the disruption of Ukrainian grain imports by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces amounts to a “real war crime,” as it amplifies the risk of hunger. “One cannot imagine that millions of tons of wheat remain blocked in Ukraine while in the rest of the world people are suffering hunger. This is a real war crime,” Josep Borrell said.
TENNIS — The Polish tennis player Iga Swiatek leads the WTA rankings, being followed by Estonian Anett Kontaveit and Tunisian Ons Jabeur. Simona Halep, former world leader, currently ranks 19th. Romania has four more female players in top 100 – Sorana Cîrstea (WTA 32) Irina-Camelia Begu (WTA 43), Elena-Gabriela Ruse (WTA 55) and Jaqueline Cristian (WTA 70). In women’s doubles there are only four Romanians in top 100, namely Monica Niculescu (39), Raluca Olaru (50), Elena-Gabriela Ruse (59) and Irina Bara (60). (EE)
