The former Romanian sovereign King Mihai I is in a
\nhospital in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he was taken a few days ago, according
\nto his press office. He is physically weak, but stable, and receives constant
\ntreatment. In a statement published on Wednesday, the 94-year-old king said he
\nreceived news of a serious medical diagnosis a few weeks ago, at a time when
\nhis family and Romania celebrate 150 years since the establishment of the
\ndynasty and the formation of the Romanian modern state. Diagnosed with two types of cancer, Mihai I
\nhas also undergone surgery. He handed over his public responsibilities to his
\nolder daughter, princess Margareta. Born on the 25th of October
\n1921, Mihai I was king between 1927 and 1930 and then again from 1940 until
\n1947, when he was forced by the communists to abdicate and go into
\nexile. He returned to Romania after the collapse of the communist regime in
\n1989. <\/p>\n
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The Romanian prime minister Dacian Ciolos on Monday
\ntravels to Brussels to attend the EU – Turkey summit. The flatter plays a crucial role in stemming the flow of migrants to
\nEurope. Ciolos will also attend an informal meeting of European Council
\nmembers. On Tuesday, he will have talks with the European Council president
\nDonald Tusk about internal EU issues, including the economic situation,
\nemployment, the refugee crisis, Schengen, the EU’s relationship with Britain
\nand the energy union. The two officials will also tackle external issues, such
\nas the eastern neighbourhood, the Republic of Moldova and Syria. In another
\nmeeting scheduled for Tuesday, Dacian Ciolos will meet NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to discuss
\nregional security issues, such as NATO’s presence in eastern Europe, the Black
\nSea area and the EU-NATO strategic relationship. On Wednesday, Romania’s prime
\nminister travels to The Hague for talks with his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte
\nand other senior officials. <\/p>\n
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After
\n20 years, the Republic of Moldova comes back to directly electing the head of
\nstate, according to a ruling issued by the Constitutional Court on Friday. The
\ncourt decided that the amendments brought to the Moldovan Constitution in 2000,
\nunder which the head of state was elected by Parliament, are now null and void.
\nThe court argued that the election of the president by parliament had triggered
\nmany political crises. The election procedure is to be established under an
\norganic law, and the Court has ruled that Parliament must immediately adopt the
\nlaw. The term of the current president, Nicolae Timofti, ends on March 22nd.<\/p>\n
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The
\nproject titled ‘Less Developed Regions’, targeting Romania’s poor areas was one
\nof the topics discussed in Bucharest on Friday by President Klaus Iohannis and
\nthe European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Cretu. Under this
\nprogram, which has been recently launched in Romania as well, the European
\nCommission will support the regions whose GDP is below 50% of the EU average,
\nin order to identify and overcome the barriers in the way of using community
\nfunds. According to a communiqu\u00e9, the two officials also discussed the revision
\nof the evaluation mechanisms and relaunching the absorption of European funds,
\nas well as the importance of funding projects in fields such as education and
\nhealth-care. <\/p>\n
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The former
\nRomanian deputy prime minister and interior minister Gabriel Oprea has resigned
\nfrom his position as leader of the National Union for the Progress of Romania
\nparty. He justified his decision saying he does not want the scandal in which
\nhe is involved to affect his party in an election year. Oprea is under
\ninvestigation for abuse of office while serving as interior minister.
\nAnti-corruption prosecutors accuse him of authorising the purchase of a luxury
\ncar by the ministry and of abusively using official police escort to which he
\nwas not entitled. <\/p>\n
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According to the Sanitary and Veterinary Agency, the E.coli bacteria has not been found in milk produced by
\nfarms in the Romanian counties of Arges and Dolj. The
\ntests have been carried out as part of a wide-scale investigation to find the
\nsource of the E.coli bacteria that infected tens of children in Arges.
\nAgriculture minister Achim Irimescu does not rule out that the source may be
\nthe fresh cow cheese produced by a factory using milk from the farms in Arges and
\nDolj. The representatives of the Federation of Producers of Traditional
\nProducts do not agree with the minister and say his statement caused a lot of
\ndamage to the image and sales of these producers, whose sales allegedly dropped
\nby 40%. Three infants have died since the beginning of February because of
\nserious digestive complications caused by the E.coli bacteria. <\/p>\n
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Romania’s
\nDavis Cup team this weekend faces Slovenia in Arad, western Romania, in the
\nfirst round of the Europe – Africa Group I. In the first singles game, Marius
\nCopil, no.202 in the ATP world ranking, defeated in three sets Blaz Rola,
\nranked 160th. In a doubles match on Saturday, Horia Tecau and Florin
\nMergea will face Tomislav Ternar and Aliaz Radinski. Sunday will see the last
\ntwo singles matches, with Adrian Ungur facing Blaz Rola and Marius Copil taking
\non Grega Zemlja.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A roundup of domestic and international news<\/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":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-100873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n