Newflash, June 20

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Ştefan Stoica, 20.06.2013, 13:20

Romanian Transport Minister Relu Fenechiu on Thursday announced that the tender auctioning off 51% of the shares of CFR Marfa, the Freight Division of the Romanian Rail Company was won by the only bidder left. The winner is a local company that will now pay the state the equivalent of the remaining 49% of shares, tantamount to 202 million euros. In addition the company will invest another 200 million euros in CFR Marfa. In another development, trade unions continue their protests in front of the Transport Ministry building, condemning the lack of transparency in the privatisation process. Employees fear a forthcoming wave of mass redundancies. The privatisation of loss-incurring CFR Marfa is one of the measures the Government has pledged to introduce as part of Romania’s standby agreement with the IMF, the EU and the World Bank.

Romania and the Netherlands on Thursday signed a joint declaration on the well functioning of the two country’s labour markets by combating worker abuse and illegal labour. The agreement was signed by Romanian Labour Minister Mariana Campeanu and her Dutch counterpart Lodewik Asscher in Luxemburg, where the two officials attended the meeting of the EU Council for Employment, Social Policy, Healthcare and Consumer Protection. Among others, the declaration highlights labour mobility across the EU and the need for institutional cooperation between Member States.

Leaders of the European People’s Party (EPP) attending a summit in Vienna on Thursday adopted a joint declaration under the heading “New growth and jobs for Europe”. According to the document, combating unemployment, especially youth unemployment, remains among Europe’s top priorities. Attending the summit devoted to preparing the agenda of the European Council of June 27th and 28th, were heads of state and government, leaders of the opposition, European Council President Herman van Rompuy, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and Romanian president Traian Basescu.

The Romanian Foreign Ministry claims that the adoption of the so-called state border law in Transnistria, the breakaway region east of the Republic of Moldova, is an act of defiance which will attract the disapproval of the international community. The reaction follows after the leader in Tiraspol Yevgeny Shevchuk promulgated a draft law transferring several Moldovan towns and villages under Transnistrian authority. Experts fear Tiraspol, which currently enjoys Moscow’s support, might resort to a military intervention. Russia would thus try to thwart Moldova’s EU ambitions by preventing the country from signing the association agreement. The Moldovan Parliament on Thursday debated the situation in Transnistria, a region that broke away with Moldova in 1992 in the wake of an armed conflict.

Romanian tennis player Simona Halep on Thursday progressed to the semi-finals of the tennis tournament of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, totalling 235,000 dollars in prize money. 45th WTA seed Halep will go up against Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain in the semi-finals, currently ranking 19th in world standings. We recall that Halep won the Nurnberg tournament last week.