23 May 2018

A roundup of the main stories in Romania today.

Newsroom, 23.05.2018, 13:31

Accident. Nine Romanians, seven men and two women, were killed in a bus
accident that took place on Tuesday evening in Hungary. They were travelling
from Slovenia to Romania. According to preliminary information, the bus driver
tried to overtake at high speed and crashed into a truck coming from the
opposite direction. A mobile consular team from the Romanian Embassy in
Budapest travelled to the site of the accident. According to a Romanian foreign
ministry release, Romania’s embassy in Budapest is in permanent contact with
the local authorities and the families of the victims and is providing consular
assistance.

UN. Romania’s ambassador to the United Nations Ion
Jinga highlighted in a Security Council address Bucharest’s contribution to
peace keeping operations and ensuring the protection of civilians in armed
conflicts. He also underlined the major importance of preventing conflicts
through international cooperation and respect for international humanitarian
law and human rights. He made these statements at a talk about the Protection
of Civilians in Armed Conflicts hosted by the Polish presidency of the United
Nations. According to the defence ministry in Bucharest, Romania currently
contributes 1,000 military, observers and advisors to international missions,
of whom 700 are deployed under the NATO aegis to missions in Afghanistan,
Kosovo and Bosnia-Hertegovina.

Talks. The
president’s foreign policy advisor Bogdan Aurescu has emphasised during talks with
senior officials from the Pentagon that the Black Sea region must be given
enhanced attention at the future NATO summit in Brussels, Romania’s embassy in
the US has said in a release. Bucharest’s goals at the summit are to ensure the
coherence of the Eastern Flank and consolidating allied defence and deterrence,
stability and the relationships with the partners in the eastern and southern
neighbourhood and enhancing NATO’s role in combating terrorism. Bogdan Aurescu
met Robert S. Karem, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and Thomas
Goffus, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy. The
American officials appreciated the Romanian national programme for the
modernisation of military capabilities. Bogdan Aurescu has emphasised that, in
2017, Romania ranked first among its NATO allies when it comes to enhancing its
defence spending, namely by 45%.

Transporters. On Wednesday and Thursday, Bucharest
is playing host to the works of the Executive Committee of the European
Transport Workers’ Federation. Talks are expected to focus on the current
problems faced by maritime, road, naval, rail and air transport. The meetings,
which are chaired by the Federation’s president Frank Moreels, and its
secretary general Eduardo Chagas, are attended by a number of Romanian
officials, including the speaker of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, Calin
Popescu Tariceanu and Liviu Dragnea, respectively, as well as the transport
minister Lucian Sova. This is the first time the Federation’s Executive
Committee is not held in Brussels.

New
car model. The
American company Ford is to manufacture a new model at its factory in Craiova,
in southern Romania, which will create 1,500 new jobs. The new model will be
made in parallel with the current generation of subcompact SUVs, Ford EcoSport,
and the EcoBoost engine. For the manufacturing of the new model, Ford will make
an additional investment of almost 200 million euros. The company’s
representatives have continued to call on the government to improve the
transport infrastructure. The Ford factory in Craiova employs 4,400 people and
Ford’s investment in Craiova since 2008 has amounted to around 1.5 billion
euros.

Trial. The High Court of Cassation and Justice in Bucharest
has postponed for the 5th of June a ruling in a corruption trial
involving the former government minister Elena Udrea. She was previously
convicted in a court of first instance to 6 years in prison for bribe taking
and abuse of office and fined 3 million euros in damages. At the final hearing,
the anti-corruption prosecution requested harsher sentences for Udrea and the
former president of the Romanian Boxing Federation Rudel Obreja over their
involvement in the organisation of a boxing gala with former world champions
Lucian Bute. According to the National Anticorruption Directorate, Udrea
coordinated a system that allowed persons close to her to receive sums of money
from representatives of commercial companies to guarantee the latter were paid
on time for works funded by the ministry she was running at the time.
Investigators say the sums obtained went directly to Udrea, in cash or through
the payment of goods and services, to the Bucharest branch of the former
Liberal Democratic Party (now part of the National Liberal Party) and to Rudel
Obreja.

Employment. 27 million European Union employees aged between 15 and 64 had
temporary employment contracts in 2017, which accounts for 14.3% of the total
number of employees in the Union, according to figures published by Eurostat
today. Romania ranks last among EU member states in this respect, with only
1.2% of employees having temporary contracts. Other member states with a low
number of temporary employment contracts are Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. At
the opposite end, one out of four employees in Spain and Poland had temporary
employment contracts in 2017.