The Chamber of Deputies, Romanian Parliament’s
\ndecision-making body, on Wednesday passed the postal voting bill with a large
\nmajority. On Tuesday, a parliamentary committee made a number of amendments to
\nthe bill. One change refers to the fact that the postal voting system will only
\nbe used in next year’s parliamentary elections and not also in the presidential
\nand European elections, as stipulated in the initial version of the bill
\napproved last week. Both the ruling coalition and the opposition have given assurances
\nthat similar provisions will be drafted for the presidential elections. The
\nbill will next be submitted to the president to be signed into law. The idea to
\nintroduce the postal voting system emerged after the organisational problems
\nthat appeared during the presidential elections last November. <\/p>\n
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The Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday rejected the request by the
\nNational Anticorruption Directorate to approve the pre-trial arrest of MP Elena
\nUdrea, but approved a request for her detention as part of a new corruption
\ncase. Udrea is accused of receiving bribe of almost 4 million dollars from a
\nbusinessman to help him earn a contract with Hidrolectrica while she was
\nserving as a minister. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court decided that Udrea would
\nstill be subject to legal restrictions pending trial as part of a different
\ncase known as the Bute Boxing Gala. She was indicted in this case in April
\nfor bribe taking, abuse of office and attempt to use false documents and
\nstatements, alongside a number of other persons, including the former economy
\nminister Ion Ariston and the former president of the Romanian Boxing Federation
\nRudel Obreja. <\/p>\n
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Romania’s prime minister Victor Ponta is paying a two-day
\nvisit to Mexico, where he will meet president and also head of the Mexican
\ngovernment Enrique Pena Nieto and will attend the Open Government Partnership
\nGlobal Summit in Mexico City. Talks will focus on political and economic
\ncooperation, cooperation in the field of culture and education and the
\nprospects for upgrading the agreement between the European Union and Mexico.
\nPrime Minister Ponta will also meet Mexican high-ranking officials and
\nbusinesspeople, the government in Bucharest has announced. His visit, the first
\nby a Romanian prime minister to Mexico in the last 25 years, takes place at a
\ntime when Romania and Mexico celebrate 80years of diplomatic ties.
\nThe Open Government Partnership is a multilateral initiative launched by the US
\nand seven other states in 2011, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.<\/p>\n
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Romanian foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu,
\nwho is on a two-day trip to Spain, had talks on Wednesday with his counterpart
\nJose Manuel Garcia-Margallo y Marfil about the further consolidation of the
\npolitical dialogue between the two states and the expansion of economic
\ncooperation. According to the Romanian foreign ministry, bilateral trade
\naccounted for 3 billion euros last year. Bogdan Aurescu also emphasised the
\ncontribution of the Romanian community, the largest of Spain’s foreign
\ncommunities, to that country’s development. Also on Wednesday, the two foreign
\nministers attended an event on preventing and fighting violent extremism, when
\nthey presented a Romanian-Spanish initiative on the establishment of an
\ninternational court for terrorism. <\/p>\n
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Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis will host a top-level meeting of
\nstates in Central and Eastern Europe to be held on the 4th of
\nNovember in Bucharest. According to a press release from the president’s
\noffice, the meeting will be attended by the presidents of Bulgaria, Poland,
\nHungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Slovakia, the speaker of the Chamber of
\nDeputies in the Czech Republic and the NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander
\nVershbow. According to Radio Romania’s News Channel, the participants in the
\nsummit wish to send a common message with regard to NATO’s adjustment to the
\ncurrent security environment. <\/p>\n
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In 2015, Romania ranks 37th out
\nof 189 countries in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2016 report. According to
\nthis source, starting a business in Romania takes eight days and requires five
\nprocedures. Romania is ahead of countries like Bulgaria, Hungary, Belgium,
\nItaly and Turkey, and behind states like the Czech Republic, Japan, Slovenia
\nand Slovakia. Singapore, New Zealand and Denmark are first on ease of doing business.
\nThe World Bank’s report looks at 189 economies based on 11 criteria such as
\nstarting a business, getting credit, getting electricity and trading across
\nborders. The report does not look at aspects such as security, macroeconomic
\nstability and corruption.<\/p>\n
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The
\nspeaker of the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest Valeriu Zgonea attended a
\nmeeting on the fight against terrorism financing as part of the third edition
\nof the parliamentary forum on security and information in Washington. On
\nTuesday, on the sidelines of the forum, Valeriu Zgonea had talks with US
\nofficials during which he emphasised that the expansion of the strategic
\npartnership with the US is a major priority for Romania’s foreign and security
\npolicy. <\/p>\n
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World no. 2 Simona Halep of Romania on Thursday faces the
\nPolish player Agnieszka Radwanska in her final Round Robin Red Group match at
\nthe WTA Finals under way in Singapore. If she wins, Halep will qualify for the
\nsemifinals. In her previous matches, she defeated Italy’s Flavia Pennetta 6-0,
\n6-3 and lost to Russia’s Maria Sharapova 4-6, 4-6. The WTA Finals are worth
\nseven million dollars in prize money and bring together the world’s top 8
\nplayers. According to the WTA rankings made public on Monday, Halep is more
\nthan 4,000 points behind world no. 1 Serena Williams and 1,200 points ahead of
\nthe Spaniard Garbine Muguruza, who is ranked third.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some of the main stories in Romania today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":100004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[28877],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-100552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-newsflash"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n