June 2, 2016 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 02.06.2016, 12:15
Four employees of the Romanian Mobile Emergency Service for Resuscitation and Extrication, SMURD, died on Thursday in a helicopter crash in the neighbouring Republic of Moldova. The helicopter, owned by SMURD Iasi fell down in a village in the south east of Moldova, while flying to Cahul, to take over a patient who needed to be transported to a hospital in capital Chisinau. The Romanian Interior Ministry, which has activated a crisis team, has announced that all helicopters like the one that crashed shall remain on the ground. Also, Romanian experts went to the Republic of Moldova to take part in the investigation.
Romanian Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu will travel to Warsaw next week alongside his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, for talks on the situation on NATOs south-eastern border. The stage of cooperation among Romania, Turkey and Poland will also be high on the agenda of talks. According to the Polish Foreign Minister, Witold Waszczykowski, Poland wants to collaborate directly with Romania, as the two states have similar goals in the strategic partnership. Against this background, the Polish official mentioned the statements of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, who talked about the potential threat posed by the elements of the American anti-ballistic shield in Romania and Poland. The talks will be held next Thursday, one month ahead of the NATO summit in Warsaw.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel sees no reason for the EU to lift sanctions against Russia in the Ukraine crisis, a German government spokesperson said on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that some EU states were skeptical about extending sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis and it was unclear whether the 28-nation bloc would decide to extend them. A spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry has said that Steinmeiers statements were not inconsistent with either the Berlin Governments stance regarding the crisis in Ukraine or with the final declaration of the G7 leaders in Japan.
Turkey has announced it will call back its ambassador to Germany for consultations, as on Thursday the Bundestag adopted a resolution recognizing the genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire against Armenians in 1915. Turkey, a key partner to Germany and the EU in the efforts to curb the influx of immigrants, has stated that the document is a historical error and is therefore null and void. Although Ankara authorities admit many Christian Armenians were killed in clashes with the Ottoman forces, they deny that the number of victims stood at hundreds of thousands and that there was an organized ethnic cleansing campaign.
Romanias hard currency reserves at the end of May exceeded 32 billion Euro, up by over 1.2 billion as compared to April 30, according to a report of the National Bank of Romania. A Eurobond issue two weeks ago, worth 1 billion Euro, triggered the increase. The gold reserves stood at 103.7 tons, worth over 3.6 billion Euro, the report also says.
Novelist Dan Stanca, poet Vasile Dan, literary critic Mircea Anghelescu and essay-writer Horia-Roman Patapievici were among the winners of the Writers Union Awards for 2015. According to the Writers Union webpage, the most important award, the National Prize for Literature went to novelist Mircea Cartarescu, who turned 60 on the very day he got the award. The Writers Union Special Prize went to Horia-Roman Patapievici.
On Friday in Bucharest, Romanias national football team will play against Georgia, in the last friendly match before the European Championship in France. Last week, in the training stage hosted by Italy, Romania ended 1-1 the match against Congo and lost 3-4 to Ukraine. In the opening match at the Euro 2016, on June 10th, Romania will take on the host country, in a group that also includes Switzerland and Albania.
