May 15, 2018 UPDATE

President Iohannis and PM Viorica Dancila have held talks on Romanias foreign policy/ The High Court of Cassation and Justice has announced it will issue a ruling on May 29 in the trial in which the PSD leader Liviu Dragnea is facing corruption charges

Newsroom, 15.05.2018, 19:55

CONSULTATIONS – Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Viorica Dancila held talks on Tuesday on the countrys foreign policy, also on a prospective relocation of the Romanian Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. A communiqué issued by the Presidency shows the president underlined that it is mandatory for Romanias foreign policy to be pursed solely in the interest of the country and that domestic tensions on foreign policy issues should come to an end immediately, for Bucharest to remain a credible player in the relation with the US, at the level of the European Union and NATO, as well as within the other strategic partnerships it is committed to. In turn, Viorica Dăncilă has said that in her capacity as head of the government, her main responsibility is to implement the governing program, including the chapter devoted to foreign policy. In this context, according to the PM, launching an analysis and assessment process into the possibility of relocating the Romanian Embassy in Israel, a proposal analysed by other countries too, is also part of this chapter. The government has recently adopted a memorandum on the opportunity of relocating the Romanian Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

SOFIA– President Iohannis will attend on Wednesday and Thursday in the Bulgarian capital city of Sofia, the informal meeting of the European Council and the EU-Western Balkans Summit. According to a communiqué issued by the Presidential Administration in Bucharest, Wednesdays agenda of the informal meeting of the European Council will cover issues related to such domains as IT, research and innovation. The participants will also tackle the decision made by the US on introducing customs duties on steel and aluminium imports. On Thursday, at the EU-Western Balkans Summit, the heads of state and government will approach such issues as connectivity, security and migration. President Iohannis will underline the importance of projects in the field of connectivity, infrastructure, energy and digital networks, given that they all can enhance the convergence between the EU and the Western Balkans regions, the communiqué also reads.

RULING – The High Court of Cassation and Justice in Bucharest on Tuesday announced that on May 29, it will issue the ruling in the trial in which the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Liviu Dragnea, is facing corruption charges. The anti-corruption prosecutors request a 7 year and five month jail sentence for abuse of office and two years and six months for forgery. They say that when Dragnea was head of the Teleorman County Council, he made several employees of the Social Assistance Directorate fictitiously hire two persons who were members of the Social Democratic Partys local organization. Although the two were working exclusively for the Social Democratic Party, their salaries were paid from public money. We recall that in 2016, the Court found Liviu Dragnea guilty of having local Social Democratic leaders take people to polls illegally, in order to make sure the referendum against the then president was validated, and gave him a 2-year suspended sentence.

ECONOMIC GROWTH – Latvia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania reported the biggest economic growth in the EU in the first quarter of 2018 as against the same period of 2017, according to preliminary data made public by the Eurostat on Tuesday. Romania has reported a 4.2% economic growth. Also, according to data made public by the Romanian Statistics Institute on Tuesday, Romanias economy in the first quarter of the year went up by 4% on gross terms and by 4.2% on seasonally as against the same period last year.(translated by E. Enache and D. Vijeu)