PARADE The National Day parade in France was marked this year by the
\nwar in Ukraine. Troops from 9 countries on NATO’s eastern flank, including 12
\nfrom Romania, paraded jointly with French military as a token of the unity of
\nNATO Allies and of solidarity with Ukraine, Radio Romania’s correspondent in
\nParis reports. According to her, this year’s celebrations unfolded under the
\nmotto ‘Partager la flame’ (Divide the Flame), with a dual meaning: to pay
\nhomage to Hubert Germain, the last member of the French resistance against the
\nNazi occupation, who died this year, and to hail the Olympic flame ahead the
\nOlympic Games Paris is due to stage in 2024. Romanian president Klaus Iohannis Thursday
\nsent president Macron a letter of congratulations and wishes of prosperity for
\nthe French people. Iohannis highlighted the solidity and consistency of the
\nStrategic Partnership between Romania and France, built on common values and
\nexcellent cooperation both at bilateral level and within the EU and other
\ninternational bodies. Bucharest celebrated France’s national day with a
\nreception at the French Embassy, attended by Romania’s Prime Minister Nicolae
\nCiuca and by senior French officials.<\/p>\n
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ECONOMY Thanks to a
\nsurprising 5.2% growth rate in Q1, the European Commission decided to update
\nits estimates on Romania’s economic growth this year, from 2.6% forecast in
\nMarch to 3.9% in its summer economic forecast made public on Thursday. The Commission
\nalso operated a downward adjustment of its forecast for 2023, from 3.6% to 2.9%,
\ngiven that the growth trend is expected to slow down both globally and at EU
\nlevel. Private consumption and investments are expected to be the main growth
\nengines both this year and the next, whereas net exports will lead to a deeper
\ntrade deficit, the Commission says. <\/p>\n
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VISIT Germany’s
\nforeign minister Annalena Baerbock will be on an official visit to Bucharest
\nand Constan\u0163a on Friday, the German embassy in Bucharest announced. Annalena
\nBaerbock will co-chair the second ministerial conference of the Support
\nPlatform for the Republic of Moldova together with her Romanian counterpart,
\nBogdan Aurescu and the French state secretary for development, Francophonie, and international partnerships Chrysoula
\nZacharopoulou. Also on Friday Annalena Baerbock will have meetings with PM Nicolae
\nCiuc\u0103 and foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu, focusing on bilateral and European
\npolicy topics. In the Black Sea port of Constan\u0163a the German official will
\ndiscuss with local officials and representatives of German companies about
\nUkraine’s grain exports via Constan\u0163a. <\/p>\n
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CENSUS The deadline for finalising the national population
\nand housing census has been extended by a week, from July 17 to 24, as the
\ncurrent completion rate is below 90%. The organisers are hoping to bring the
\nrate up to 100% using fixed census locations and door-to-door operators. For the
\nfirst time in Romania, a first stage of the national census was conducted
\nonline, with 11 million respondents registered, which is little under half of
\nthe estimated resident population of Romania.<\/p>\n
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DRILL Over July 14 and 25 three Romanian warships take part in the
\ninternational exercise ‘Breeze 22’ staged and coordinated by the Bulgarian Navy
\nin the country’s territorial and the international waters of the Black Sea and
\nthe Bulgarian port of Burgas. This year’s edition of the exercise has brought
\ntogether navy and air forces from Albania, Belgium, France, Georgia, Italy,
\nLatvia, Poland, Turkey and the USA. The drill is aimed at strengthening
\ntactical interoperability between the navy personnel and participating units
\nand at practicing conventional and non-conventional war procedures.<\/p>\n
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UKRAINE Addressing an international conference on the war crimes in
\nUkraine held in The Hague, the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy
\nThursday requested the creation of a special tribunal to investigate Russia’s
\ninvasion of Ukraine. The country’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba also asked
\nfor a special court trying the crime of aggression, defined as an attack by one
\nstate against another. All we want is for the crime of aggression to not go
\nunpunished, Dmytro Kuleba said during the same conference. Political,
\ndiplomatic and judicial leaders from around the world convened on Thursday for
\na conference on the crimes committed in Ukraine since February 24. The European
\nCommissioner for Justice Didier Reynders mentioned that 20,000 investigations
\nconcerning war crimes in Ukraine have been opened. Around 14 European countries
\nare investigating these crimes, and a European Joint Investigation Team has
\nbeen set up, he added. Russia denies the abuses of which its troops are being
\naccused, which include shelling civilians, executions, and rapes, and in
\nexchange accuses Ukraine of crime wars. Meanwhile, scores of civilians were
\nkilled or wounded on Thursday in a Russian missile attack on the town of Vinnytsia,
\nin central Ukraine. (AMP)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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