May 21, 2018 UPDATE
Facebook CEO's hearing in the European Parliament, live-streamed
Newsroom, 21.05.2018, 19:45
HEALTH – Romanian Health Minister Sorina Pintea is attending from Monday until Friday the 71st World Health Assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland. Minister Pintea will emphasize during an address on Tuesday, the importance of universal access to medical services. Also, she will have bilateral meetings with delegations from Norway, Portugal and Germany and with representatives of the World Bank. Its main functions are to determine the policies of the Organization, appoint the Director-General, supervise financial policies, and review and approve the proposed programme budget. The Health Assembly is held annually in Geneva, Switzerland.
PARLIAMENT – The European Parliament has announced that the meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday is no longer behind closed doors and will be live-streamed. Earlier, news that the Facebook chiefs meeting with the parliaments political group leaders would be in private, had been criticised. The European Parliament meeting will touch on similar subjects as the hearing in the US Congress in April. The world’s largest social network has come under scrutiny over the way it handles personal data after revelations that British consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed the Facebook data of 87 million users.
BUCHAREST – European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Cretu said on Monday in Bacau, eastern Romania, that Romania has not been prepared enough to access EU funds for quality projects ever since it joined the European Union, in 2007. Cretu said the delays were caused, among others, by bureaucracy and excessive legislation. In Bacau, Commissioner Cretu alongside PM Viorica Dancila and the Minister of European funds, Rovana Plumb, are taking part in a conference on urban investment. In a communiqué ahead of the visit to Bacau, Corina Cretu said that over 1 billion euros would be invested in urban development in Romania.
CHISINAU — In the first round of the snap elections for the mayoral seat in Chisinau, the capital of the Republic of Moldova, no candidate got the majority. The top ranked candidates will face off in the decisive round in two weeks, pro-Russian Socialist Ion Ceban, who got 41% of the vote, and Andrei Nastase, pro-European, on behalf of the Dignity and Truth Platform, with around 32%. Two pro-European candidates, representing the Liberal Party and the National Union Party, who together got around 8% of the votes, announced their support for Nastase in the second round.
CELEBRATION — Orthodox believers celebrated on Monday the feast of Saints Constantine and Helena, whom almost two million Romanians are named after. Emperor Constantine issued the Milan Edict in the year 313 CE, making Christianity an official religion in the Roman Empire. His mother Helena built churches in Bethlehem and Golgotha.
REGULATIONS — New traffic regulations have been issued in Romania. Drivers who do not get their mandatory annual check-up are up for a fine and seizure of their registration and tags. The same penalty applies for cars that exchange owners, but do not get registered in the new owners name within 90 days of the purchase. As a novelty, auto mechanics who perform annual check-ups have an obligation to make a video recording of the procedure.
AGREEMENT— Romania and Ukraine have agreed to introduce two pairs of trains linking Suceava, in north-western Romania to Cernauti, in western Ukraine, starting on January 1st, 2019. The announcement was made by the Ukrainian ministry in charge of infrastructure after a meeting between Ukrainian Minister for European Integration, Viktor Dovhan, and Junior Secretary for the Ministry of Transportation, Maria Magdalena Grigore. The Ukrainian community in Romania is estimated at 400,000. (Translated by Elena Enache)
