3 March, 2015
News and Current Affairs
Newsroom, 03.03.2015, 11:59
Romania’s Higher Defense Council meets today in Bucharest for the first time under the new head of state, Klaus Iohannis. The agenda includes the situation in neighboring Ukraine and its implications for Romania, the stage of reform in the Romanian armed forces, as well as the challenges of migration from areas afflicted by terrorism. Other topics include the political and economic issues of including in the EU and NATO the states in the West Balkans, as well as the evolution of cybespace in 2014.
Funerals are held today in Moscow for opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, shot to death a few days ago. Nemtsov, one of the most vocal critics of the Putin government, was killed near the Kremlin. According to investigators, this was a carefully planned attack. Nemtsov was governor of Nizhnyi Novgorod, was a deputy prime minister for economic reform under Boris Yeltsin, to whom he was a close associate. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that the Russian politician was killed for planning to make public proof of Moscow’s involvement in the Ukrainian separatist conflict. In turn, US President Barack Obama called for a thorough investigation into the death of the Russian opposition leader. President Putin will not be attending the funeral. The 28 EU ambassadors will be paying homage to the slain leader.
On Monday night in Brussels the EU managed to mediate an agreement between Kiev and Moscow on continued natural gas deliveries to Ukraine to last until the end of March, also securing transit of gas through Ukraine to European consumers. The dispute revolved around the issue of which state pays for gas used in the separatist regions controlled by pro-Russian secessionists. The situation sparked fears of a war of natural gas, which could threaten energy security for both Ukraine and the EU. Both sides said that the supply of gas to rebel controlled regions will not be considered when calculating payments made by Kiev.
The head of the National Uranium Company in Romania, Ioan Moraru, resigned after meeting Minister of Energy Andrei Gerea. The talks came after hundreds of miners in the uranium exploitation in the north east of the country went on strike underground on Monday. They are angry about the fact that they didn’t get the salary raise convened on in January with the government. The only uranium mine in Romania provides fuel for the Cernavoda nuclear plant in Romania, and has been open for three decades.
