September 18, 2015
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 18.09.2015, 12:00
The Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, will participate on September 23rd in an extraordinary European Council summit to be held in Brussels, official sources announced on Friday. The summit was asked by Germany in the context of the immigrants’ crisis, one day after an extraordinary meeting of the interior ministers of the EU countries held on the same topic. President Iohannis reiterated Bucharest’s commitment to receiving 1,785 refugees, although the European Commission wants Romania to shelter 3 times more refugees. Alongside Romania another 9 EU states reject the compulsory migrant quotas.
The representative of the IMF for Romania and Bulgaria, Guillermo Tolosa, says that in the next 3 years Romania is likely to compete, from an economic point view, with European states such as Greece, the Czech Republic and Portugal if it has fiscal stability and manages to attract investments, mainly in the infrastructure domain. The IMF official confirmed, on the other hand, that the Romanian government paid off its duty to the IMF. Of the current stand-by loan concluded with the international creditors, which will expire later this month, Romania still has to pay back over 4.8 billion euros to the World Bank and the European Commission. Recently the PM Victor Ponta said that Bucharest no longer needs to take out loans from the IMF and the EC, but added that in a period of turmoil in the region and in Europe, concluding agreements with these institutions is a good thing.
The new Romanian ambassador to the USA, George Maior, on Thursday presented his credentials to the US president Barack Obama as part of a ceremony held at the White House. Maior said that Romania had a firm commitment to improving the business environment, which is vital for attracting American investments and boosting trade exchanges. The Romanian diplomat added that the strategic partnership with the US was a basic pillar for Romania’s foreign and security policy and said that the support granted by the US helped Romania in the process of democratization, observing human rights and the rule of law.
Over 1,200 soldiers are training today in Brasov county (in central Romania) as part of the HISTRIA 15 military drill. The soldiers will simulate defense against the entry of the enemy on the national territory. During the drill they will use armored transporters, tanks, anti-air defense systems, planes and helicopters, the defense ministry announced. HISTRIA 15 is a large-scale drill at strategic level which simulates a war situation and which takes place in 9 locations across Romania. The exercise started on September 7th and will end today, September 18th. 7 thousand employees of the institutions of the defense, public order and national security systems have been mobilized for the drill.
On Sunday early elections will be held in Greece, that were asked by the former PM and leader of the leftist Syriza party, Alexis Tsipras, in his attempt to obtain a new parliamentary majority. He had lost the support of scores of MPs from his party after he had agreed with the conditions imposed by international creditors in exchange for a 3rd loan agreement. According to opinion polls Syriza outruns its rival the rightist New Democracy party by at least 1% but it is not likely to obtain the majority, according to France press. The leader of the rightist opposition, Vangelis Meimarakis, expressed confidence in his victory in Sunday’s elections and promised to set up a “national team” to govern.
