June 30, 2015 UPDATE
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România Internațional, 30.06.2015, 12:15
The Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, has again called on the Social Democrat PM Victor Ponta to resign. In an interview to the British publication the Financial Times that was carried Tuesday by news agencies the Romanian president said it was unacceptable for a European country to have a prime minister accused by prosecutors of illegalities. Iohannis asked Ponta to resign for the first time on June 5th after the National Anticorruption Directorate announced Victor Ponta was being prosecuted for forgery, and for being an accessory to tax evasion and money laundering, crimes he is supposed to have perpetrated when he was a lawyer, as well as for conflict of interests in his position of PM. In reply, the prime minister declared at the time that he was invested by Parliament and that it was up to Parliament alone to dismiss him. Ponta is now in Turkey recovering after knee surgery. The prime minister’s office is currently held by the deputy prime minister for security and the leader of the National Union for the Progress of Romania, Gabriel Oprea.
The Romanian Parliament voted on Tuesday evening for appointing Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu as director of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service. The latter returns at the helm of the service which he headed between 2007 and 2012, during the mandate of the former Romanian President Traian Basescu. Previously, he was foreign minister between 2004- 2007 and subsequently prime minister in the first half of 2012. Proposed by President Klaus Iohannis for the position of director of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service, Ungureanu was voted by the senators and deputies of the National Liberal Party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, in opposition, and also of the National Union for the Progress of Romania and the minorities group. The vote was boycotted by the Social Democrats and their allies, the reformist liberals and the conservatives that have recently merged in one group called ALDE- Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Analysts say their vote points to the fissures in the government coalition in Bucharest.
The Romanian foreign minister, Bogdan Aurescu, firmly condemned, on Tuesday, the assassination of the Egyptian attorney general, Hisham Barakat, and assured the Egyptian authorities of Romania’s solidarity. Barakat died from the wounds sustained in the bomb attack targeting him on Monday morning in Cairo. The attack was claimed by a less known group called “Giza Popular resistance”. Barakat has condemned hundreds of Islamists to death or life imprisonment in the past 2 years as part of a campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood, thus becoming a target of the Jihadists.
The president of the Republic of Moldova, Nicolae Timofti, on Tuesday started consultations with the leaders of the parliamentary parties in order to designate a candidate for the position of PM. He met with the leaders of the two parties forming the current minority government coalition, the Liberal Democrat Vlad Filat and the Democrat Marian Lupu. They agreed to speed up negotiations regarding the setting up of a new pro-European coalition. At present the prime minister position left vacant, after on June 5th, Chiril Gaburici resigned, is held by the acting foreign minister, Natalia Gherman. Political consultations are taking place after Sunday’s local elections that brought a clear victory to the pro-European parties before the pro-Russian leftist parties. In Chisinau the Liberal Dorin Chirtoaca won his 3rd term in office as mayor. With more than 53% of the votes he defeated the Socialist Zinaida Greceanii, a former Communist premier.
Romania will participate with 58 athletes in the Summer University Games to start Thursday in the South Korean city of Gwangju. More than 20 thousand athletes from 170 countries are participating in the Universiade. On Sunday Romania ended the European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, with 12 medals, three gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze, obtaining the 17th position in the continental hierarchy.
The Romanian tennis player Monica Niculescu qualified on Tuesday to the second round of the Wimbledon tournament, the 3rd Grand Slam of the year, after she defeated Monica Puig from Porto Rico in three sets, 5-7, 6-3, 6-1. In the first round Romanian Irina Begu defeated Russian Daria Gavrilova. Simona Halep, world’s no. 3 player, was surprisingly defeated by Slovak Jana Cepelova, 106th in the WTA ranking, 7-5, 4-6, 3-6. Alexandra Dulgheru also left the tournament, being eliminated by the French Kristina Mladenovic.
The secretary general of the Romanian Football Federation, Gheorghe Chivorchian, was suspended on Tuesday upon his own request, after the National Anti-Corruption Directorate announced he was being prosecuted for corruption. Elected head of the Romanian Football Federation last year, Chivorchian is accused of being accessory to abuse of office and forgery, crimes he is supposed to have committed in 2008, when he was executive director of the football club Politehnica Timisoara. The damage stands at 2 million euros. The president of the Romanian Football Federation, Razvan Burleanu, hailed Chivorchian’s decision to quit his position during the investigation. In another development, the mayor of Brasov, in central Romania, George Scripcaru, was arrested by the anticorruption prosecutors who accuse him of abuse of office in a case related to contracts of thermal power supply. Currently a member of the National Liberal Party, Scripcaru is in his 3rd term in office as mayor of Brasov. According to the National Anti-Corruption Directorate as of 2006 up to now more than 125 mayors and deputy mayors and 8 county council presidents have been prosecuted.
