September 20, 2015 UPDATE

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România Internațional, 20.09.2015, 12:30

Romanian president Klaus Iohannis will
be receiving the new US ambassador in Bucharest Hans Klemm on Monday, sources
with the presidency have announced. During the swearing-in ceremony at the
Department of State, Klemm said that as ambassador he would focus on the
development of Romanian-US relations and that offering assistance in the
anti-graft fight would be one of his mandate’s priorities. The latest US
ambassador to Romania was Mark Gitenstein, whose mandate ended in December
2012. In the past two years and a half the US embassy in Bucharest has been led
by charges d’affairs. In another development, the Romanian president will be
paying a one-week visit to the USA to participate in the 70th
session of the UN General Assembly in New York and in the UN summit where he is
expected to deliver speeches. Also high on the Romanian president’s agenda are
talks with US Vice President Joe Biden, US investors and representatives of the
Romanian community in the USA.

Events devoted to the first documenting of
Romania’s capital city Bucharest, 556 years ago, were being held during the
weekend. Among these we mention Sound&Vision, the first festival of 100%
Romanian alternative music as well as live concerts and theme workshops
including iMapp Bucharest – one of the world’s largest video-mapping shows.
Currently at its fifth edition, ‘The White Night of Bucharest’ included cartoon
screenings, light & laser shows, live music concerts and painting
exhibitions involving state-of-the-art techniques and gear used by Romanian and
international artists.

Romania’s main
opposition party, the National Liberal Party, announced it would table a
censure motion to sanction the government’s lack of credibility, caused by the
legal issues of Prime Minister Victor Ponta. Liviu Dragnea, the interim
president of the main ruling party, the Social Democrats, said he didn’t
believe in the success of such a motion. We recall that the Prime Minister,
Social Democrat Victor Ponta and his party colleague Dan Sova have been
indicted by the National Anti-corruption Agency DNA on corruption charges. On
June 5th, the prosecutors announced they had launched penal
prosecution against Ponta for forgery,
conspiracy to commit tax evasion and money laundering in a corruption file
related to the investigation into legal council contracts at the Turceni and
Rovinari power plants in southern Romania. Prosecutors also noted that a
further investigation was due against Ponta for conflict of interest in his
current position of head of government. Ponta has rejected the prosecutors’
accusations as well as requests from president Iohannis and the liberal
opposition to step down.

Testing the country’s response capability is
necessary even if Romania is not actually facing migration pressure, the
Romanian deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Gabriel Oprea said on
Sunday. The Romanian official was attending a preventive exercise of testing
the capabilities of response and intervention of the Romanian authorities that
took place these days in Timis county, western Romania, close to the Serbian
border. Oprea has explained that all countries in Romania’s vicinity have taken
additional measures to strengthen border security. According to the Romanian
ministry, two refugee camps have been set up during the exercise at Lunga and
Stamora Moravita, Timis County. In another development, the Rozske border
checkpoint between Hungary and Serbia has been reopened after five days in the
presence of interior ministers from the two countries. The migrants flow
through the Balkan countries towards Western Europe continues. 13 thousand
people arrived in Austria at the weekend, via Hungary and Slovenia. 25 thousand
refugees entered Croatia from Serbia in the past five days, data released by
the Interior Ministry in Zagreb say.

The 22nd edition of the international Classical Music
Festival George Enescu, one of the most prestigious events of this kind in
Europe, has come to an end. At the present edition 22 works by Enescu have been
performed by some of the world’s top orchestras and some of the most valuable
international artists. Almost 25 hundred foreign and 500 Romanian artists have
stepped onto the stages of this festival held for 22 days in Bucharest and
other cities across the country. Scores of outdoor and indoor performances have
taken place during the event. The organizers on Sunday announced that the
timetable of the 2017 edition of the festival had been completed 80%.