June 30, 2014 UPDATE
A look at some of the main stories in Romania today.
România Internațional, 30.06.2014, 13:19
The United States thanks Romania for its courage and commitment in Afghanistan. In a press release made public on Monday, US Charge d’Affaires in Bucharest Duane Butcher said that during Romania’s 12 year-combat mission in Afghanistan, its soldiers, gendarmes and police helped dismantle a terrorist network, training Afghanistan’s security forces and defending the Afghan people from the Taliban’s brutal insurgency. The US official also honoured the sacrifice of the 23 Romanian soldiers who died in Afghanistan. On Sunday, Romania started withdrawing its troops from that country.
The Romanian state secretary for strategic affairs Bogdan Aurescu called on the co-president of the Friends of Romania group in the US Congress to support legislation allowing Romania to be included in the Visa Waiver programme. During a meeting with the US official in Bucharest, Bogdan Aurescu also presented the progress made by his country in meeting the criteria required by the US legislation and reiterated the expectations of the Bucharest authorities and the Romanian citizens regarding the possibility of travelling to the US visa-free as soon as possible. Aurescu also talked about the actions taken by Romania to support the European path of the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia and called for strong commitment from the US to overcome the current challenges facing the region. Bogdan Aurescu underlined the importance of the appointment of a new US ambassador to Bucharest as soon as possible.
The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in Bucharest will meet this week in an extraordinary session to ratify the association and free trade treaty between the Republic of Moldova and the European Union signed on Friday in Brussels. Romania says it wishes to be the first country to ratify this agreement, as a sign of its constant support for the European integration of its majority Romanian-speaking neighbouring state. To come into force, the agreement has to be ratified by the parliaments of all the 28 European Union member states.
A new round of talks was held on Monday in Bucharest between the main centre-right parties in Romania, namely the National Liberal Party and the Liberal Democratic Party. Talks follow the appointment of the current Sibiu mayor Klaus Iohannis as the new leader of the Liberal Party at a congress on Saturday. In another development, the executive committee of the Social Democratic Party, the largest member of the ruling coalition, will be establishing the procedure for appointing its candidate to the presidential elections in November. According to some voices, the most likely candidate is prime minister Victor Ponta.
The European commissioner for enlargement Stefan Fule said he relied on Romania’s support for developing the European Union’s good neighbourliness policies. He went on to say that he appreciated Bucharest’s main position regarding Russia’s policy vis-a-vis Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent, Stefan Fule also said that the statement carried last week by the online media about the continuation of EU’s enlargement process did under no circumstance question Romania and Bulgaria’s credibility, as claimed by certain media.
The Romanian community in Spain is the largest ethnic community in this country, although their number dropped by more than 5% over the last year, as a result of a general reduction in the number of foreign residents in Spain. On January 1st 2014, there were 730,340 Romanians living in Spain. According to the Spanish Institute for Statistics, the number of foreign nationals dropped by 7.82% in the last year. The following largest ethnic communities in Spain are the Moroccan, British and Ecuadorian communities. On 1st of January 2014 Spain had a population of 46,507,760.
