September 19, 2015
Click here for a roundup of Romanian and international news
Newsroom, 19.09.2015, 12:00
The head of the Romanian diplomacy, Bogdan Aurescu, holds talks in Bucharest today with his Dutch counterpart, Bert Koenders. The agenda includes topics related to the eastern border of the EU, including the situation in Ukraine, the European prospects of the republic of Moldova, the Western Balkans, developments in the refugee crisis. The two will also look at aspects concerning the forthcoming Dutch presidency of the EU Council, in the first half of 2016. Special attention will be given to security issues, with a focus on the preparations for the next NATO Summit, due in Warsaw in 2016, and on fighting terrorism.
Hungarys Defence Minister, Istvan Simicsko, ordered the mobilisation of some of the countrys voluntary reserve corps to help handle the “mass migration crisis. The Hungarian news agency MTI said the reserve troops would be primarily used to staff garrisons left empty by soldiers deployed to the border, but could be assigned to other duties. In Budapest, an official was quoted by France Presse as saying that more than 4,000 migrants entered Hungary on Friday. According to Reuters, Hungary is increasingly at odds with its southern neighbours, as Serbia and Croatia struggle to deal with the wave of migrants that flee Middle East countries and transit the region en route to western Europe. Croatia is the new route for the migrants coming from Syria and Iraq, after the sealing of the Serbian-Hungarian border. Meanwhile, the Slovenian Ambassador to Germany, Marta Kos Marko, said in an interview to German media on Saturday that Slovenia was ready to take up to 10,000 refugees, if they filed asylum applications in this country.
The Greeks are preparing to go to polls on Sunday, in a snap election whose result is uncertain, as the two main rival parties, the radical left-wing SYRIZA headed by the ex PM Alexis Tsipras, and the right-wing New Democracy headed by Vangelis Meimarakis, are very close in opinion polls, apparently with SYRIZA slightly ahead. Both Tsipras, and Meimarakis have promised to carry on the tax reforms requested by Greeces international lenders, the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, but also to try to take measures to reduce the impact of the austerity programme. A total 14 parties and five coalitions take part in Sundays legislative election in Greece.
EU member states have reached an agreement on the targets they will support at the UN Climate Change Conference held in Paris between November 30 and December 11. During a meeting in Brussels, the EU environment ministers decided to plead for a global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 1990, by 40% until 2030 and by 50% until 2050, aiming for as close to zero as possible in 2100. To this end, the EU will argue for a legally binding agreement to be enforced globally, not only in the more developed countries.
In Romania, 7,000 employees of the defence, public order and national security structures have been involved, in the past few days, in the HISTRIA 15 military exercise. According to the Defence Ministry, the exercise involved the use of armoured carriers, tanks, ground-to-air systems, aircraft and helicopters. HISTRIA 15 is a large-scale strategic war simulation exercise, which took place in nine shooting ranges in the country between September 7 and 18. It is the largest such exercise held in Romania so far, and it was designed to train the national command and operational structures for planning and conducting a wide range of missions.
The Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and the Pentagon chief Ashton Carter agreed, during a phone conversation, to carry on the dialogue on Syria and on how to tackle the IS group, the Pentagon announced. Russia proposed a “military-to-military dialogue on the conflict in Syria, so as to avoid incidents between the American and Russian troops deployed there, Secretary of State John Kerry said. News agencies note that Russias initiative comes amid Washingtons growing concerns with the strengthened Russian military presence in Syria to support the Bashar al-Assad regime, whereas for the past year the US has been heading an international coalition against the Islamic State.
