REFERENDUM – Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has called a round of consultations
\nnext week regarding the justice referendum. On Thursday the National Liberal Party,
\nSave Romania Union and People’s Movement Party will start consultations, along
\nwith the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians and national minorities. On
\nFriday, the Social-Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats
\nare expected to meet the president. The latter has already declined the
\npresident’s invitation, while Social-Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea said he
\nwon’t attend the consultations, although the party will send a delegation. We
\nrecall that on Thursday, the President announced
\nthat the themes which he would submit to the vote at the May 26 referendum,
\nheld simultaneously with the European Parliament elections, are related to
\nforbidding amnesty and pardon of corruption crimes and forbidding the
\ngovernment to pass emergency decrees related to criminal offences and
\npunishments, correlated with the right of other authorities to notify the
\nConstitutional Court over such decrees. At the same time the President
\ncriticized the Social-Democrats’ propensity for passing emergency decrees and
\nhas called on the Government to refrain from any such actions until the
\nreferendum. The power in turn accused the head of state of defending election
\ninterests while the Liberals have welcomed the referendum. <\/p>\n
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ELECTION – The Central Election Bureau has admitted the
\nlist of candidates submitted by nine political parties and independent
\ncandidate for the European Parliament election due in May. According to a
\nrelease published on the institution’s website, the Bureau admitted the
\ncandidacies submitted by the Social-Democratic Party, the National Liberal
\nParty, the 2020 Save Romania Union – Plus Alliance, the Alliance of Liberals
\nand Democrats, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians and the PRO Romania
\nparty. The candidates of the People’s Movement Party and the United Romania
\nParty have also been declared eligible. The Bureau also accepted the
\nindependent candidacy of Gregoriana Tudoran, a representative of the Together
\nfor A8 Association. The decision can be challenged by April 12 and the final
\nresult will be announced on April 16. The election campaign starts on April 27
\nand the election will be held on May 26. <\/p>\n
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MEETING – The
\ninformal meeting of the EU finance ministers continued in Bucharest on Saturday
\nagainst the backdrop of Romania’s holding the EU presidency. One of the main
\ntopics on the agenda was selective mobility. Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici
\nsaid at the end of the ECOFIN meeting that European states whose workforce
\nmigrates to other states should come up with an aggressive package of measures
\nfor selective mobility. On Friday the meeting hosted under the name Eurogrup
\nbrought together Finance Ministers from the Eurozone and marked the first
\nworking session of the informal meeting of Finance Ministers and central bank
\ngovernors, chaired by Romania’s line minister Eugen Teodorovici. Eurogroup
\nmembers discussed the banking sector, inflation and the exchange rate as well
\nas the developments in Greece. <\/p>\n
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REPORT – Over a third of the 2,300 alerts on dangerous
\nproducts were triggered with respect to toys, a report published by the
\nEuropean Commission for 2018 reads. Toys are followed by motor vehicles,
\nclothing, textiles and fashion items. The main risks flagged are chemical risks
\nand injuries, followed by the choking risk for children. Over half of the total
\nnumber of products identified as dangerous originate from China. Cooperation with Chinese authorities in the
\nproduct safety field continues to be a priority, the European Commission has
\nannounced. <\/p>\n
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DRUG OPERATION – Over 300 police officers,
\ngendarmes and divers are currently taking part in a wide drug search operation
\non the Romanian Black Seacoast over an area of 90 km, Romanian Police spokesman
\nGeorgian Dragan said on Saturday. Some 14 ships and two helicopters are also
\ntaking part in the mission. Organized by the Directorate for Investigating
\nOrganized Crime and Terrorism, the operation kicked off after several drug
\npackages washed off on the shore on several beaches. The search op will
\ncontinue over the next days. The Police say two people have been placed under
\npre-trial arrest and searches were made at their homes. The investigation is
\nongoing. Some 200 km of drugs have been found on beaches and out at sea so far.
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TENNIS – Romania’s Davis Cup team on Saturday defeated
\nZimbabwe 4-1 in the first round of Group II in the Europe-Africa zone. Romania
\non Saturday grabbed three wins. Horia Tecau and Florin Mergea defeated Benjamin
\nand Courtney Lock in the doubles match 6-1, 6-4. In the singles, Marius Copil defeated
\nTakanyi Garanganga 6-4, 7-5, while Filip Jianu defeated Mehluli Don Ayanda
\nSibanda. On Friday Dima defeated Garanganga while Copil lost to Benjamin Lock.
\nThe two teams previously met in 2000 when Romania won 3-2. <\/p>\n
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(translated by V. Palcu)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A roundup of domestic and international news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":75903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[30018,34649,34646,34468,34645,28945],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-103441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-davis-cup","tag-drug-operation","tag-eu-finance-ministers","tag-european-parliament-election","tag-justice-referendum","tag-klaus-iohannis"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n