18 May, 2017 UPDATE

PM Sorin Grindeanu says Romanias joining the OECD is a priority for his cabinet./ Simona Halep reaches quarterfinals of Rome tournament.

Newsroom, 18.05.2017, 19:44

OECD. Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu said on
Thursday in Bucharest that Romania’s accession to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a priority for his cabinet. He
asked his ministers to convey the message in their foreign actions that Romania
is interested in becoming a member of this organisation. The prime minister
said Romania has made constant and accelerated progress in recent years in
order to assimilate the OECD instruments and has taken part in the organisation’s
working structures. We are involved in active consultation with and are
interested in cooperating more closely with the OECD in many key areas, such as
macroeconomic policies, corporate governance, the liberalisation of capital
flows and migration, the Prime Minister also said. At present, the OECD has 34
members, which together account for around 60% of the world economy.

Cyberattack. The cyberattack against the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest,
countered last Friday, was a surgical strike targeting specific employees, said
Anton Rog, the head of the national cyberintelligence centre of the Romanian
Intelligence Service. He also said that such attacks are usually the act of a
state agent. Previously, the Romanian Intelligence Service said that, most
likely, the attempt originated from an entity associated with the cybercrime
group APT28/ Fancy Bear, connected with previous events of this kind. Also
according to Rog, the event was different from the WannaCry ransomware attack
last week, which affected state institutions and private entities from over 150
countries, including Romania. The Romanian Intelligence Service also said it
had information about another cyber attack, but no concrete data about its scale
or whether it affected Romania. IT experts quoted by France Presse said a new
wide-scale cyber attack, known as Adylkuzz, affected hundreds of thousands of
computers on Wednesday.

Award. Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis on
Thursday awarded the Competition Council with the order of the Industrial and
Commercial Merit in rank of officer to mark the latter’s 20th
anniversary. The president emphasised the Council’s role in creating conditions
of fair competition in Romania, so that businesses may act according to clear
rules. The president also said that the Council has recently completed around
140 investigations in various economic sectors.

Senate speaker. The Speaker of the Romanian Senate Calin
Popescu-Tariceanu has travelled to Poland to attend the summit of Parliament
speakers from Central and Eastern Europe. On the agenda are issues like
regional security, cooperation and the development of infrastructure on the
north-south axis, as well as the role of national parliaments in international
politics. Tariceanu will give a talk on the importance of observing the fundamental
values that define a modern society, which Romania adopted when it joined the
EU in 2007, when he was Prime Minister.

Committee
of Ministers. The Romanian foreign minister Teodor Melescanu is attending the
Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers in Nicosia, Cyprus. According to the
foreign ministry in Bucharest, the main topic on the agenda of talks is the
consolidation of democratic security in Europe, with emphasis on the challenges
posed by racism, xenophobia, social exclusion, extremism and terrorism. The
Council of Ministers is made up of a representative from each of the 47 Council
of Europe member states.

Tennis. World
no. 4 Simona Halep, Romania’s only tennis player still in competition in Rome,
on Thursday defeated Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, world no. 17, to reach
the tournament’s quartefinals. This was the seventh time the two players faced
each other, with Halep winning all previous matches. She also won the Madrid
title for the second time in a row. In the men’s doubles in Rome, the
Romanian-Pakistani pair Florin Mergea and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi lost in
straight sets on Thursday to the Polish-Brazilian pair Lukasz Kubot and Felipe Melo.