A roundup of local and international news.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n Pilots.<\/strong> The first four Ukrainian pilots have arrived in Romania to start training for the F-16 jets, the spokesman of the Ministry of Defense, Constantin Sp\u00eenu, said on Friday. He also said that for the time being, the pilots attend theoretical courses, the practical phase being scheduled to start at the end of the year. Ukraine received F-16 jets from the West and wants to be able to use them as soon as possible to counter Russian attacks. On Thursday, Minister Angel T\u00eelv\u0103r reconfirmed, in a telephone conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, Romania’s firm commitment to further supporting Ukraine.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Visa Waiver.<\/strong>\u00a0Romania is very close to fulfilling all technical criteria to enter the Visa Waiver Program, said the country\u2019s ambassador to Washington, Andrei Muraru. He had talks with the US secretary of homeland security Alejandro Mayorkas about the joint actions to be carried out by the two countries in the coming period for Romania to join the Visa Waiver Program. Muraru said Romania is weeks away from meeting the last technical requirement, the rejection rate. Under US law, an obligatory condition for a country to be considered eligible for the Visa Waiver Program is for the rejection rate of visitor visas to be under 3% in the year before joining the program.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n EU Budget.<\/strong> Romanian MEP Siegfried Mure\u015fan, one of the two chief negotiators of the European Parliament for the future budget of the Union, says that the new financial exercise must focus on the aid granted through the Common Agricultural Policy and through the Cohesion Policy. According to him, adjustments must be made to face competitiveness and adapt to the needs of farmers. In addition, Siegfried Mure\u015fan believes that the Cohesion Policy must also include the new realities in the field of defense and security, against the background of uncertainties caused by the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Russia strike.<\/strong>\u00a0The Romanian foreign ministry firmly condemns the Russian strike against a grain vessel in the Black Sea waters. \u201cThis is an unprecedented escalation of the actions of the Russian Federation in its illegal and unjustified war against Ukraine. The deliberate attack against a commercial vessel is a grave violation of humanitarian international law regarding warfare at sea\u201d, said the foreign ministry in a statement. The ministry calls on the Russian Federation to put an end to all attacks against commercial vessels and to comply with the freedom of navigation in the Black Sea. NATO strongly condemned as well the Russian attack on a civilian grain ship in the Black Sea. A Russian missile hit a commercial vessel in the Black Sea that was carrying grains from Ukraine to Egypt, with no casualties reported, said Ukraine\u2019s president Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A roundup of local and international news. Energy.\u00a0The Romanian government will ask for compensations from the European Union for the significant differences in energy prices between the west and the east of Europe, said energy minister Sebastian Burduja. He gave assurances that the domestic energy production is sufficient in the event of a mild […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":731769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[32844,154582,29572,116146,29310,28905],"coauthors":[116091],"class_list":["post-806737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-eu-budget","tag-f-17","tag-handball","tag-pilots","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nEnergy.<\/strong>\u00a0The Romanian government will ask for compensations from the European Union for the significant differences in energy prices between the west and the east of Europe, said energy minister Sebastian Burduja. He gave assurances that the domestic energy production is sufficient in the event of a mild or moderately cold winter, and in the event of a harsh winter, Romania has an interconnection capacity that allows it to supply the needed demand. According to official data, natural gas storages are filled up to 96.53%, which is 177.7 million cubic metres more than last year. Romania is still the European Union\u2019s second largest gas producer.<\/p>\n