16 June, 2018, UPDATE

A round-up of the main news stories in Romania today.

România Internațional, 16.06.2018, 18:24

Romania-Estonia. The Romanian prime minister Viorica Dancila was
received on Saturday by the Estonian president Kersti Kaljulaid on the second
day of her visit to this Baltic state. The two officials talked about the stage
of bilateral relations, topical EU and security issues and regional cooperation
formats. Prime minister Dancila said there is potential to consolidate
bilateral trade exchanges and presented the conclusions of her talks on this
subject with Estonia’s prime minister Juri Ratas. She underlined the need to
enhance connectivity between the two economies through improved mutual
knowledge and the development of infrastructure and of transport connections. Estonia’s
president welcomed Romania’s becoming a sponsoring nation of the NATO Cooperative
Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, to
which Romania is to contribute two experts. On Sunday, Viorica Dancila and Juri Ratas will attend the opening of Estonia’s honorary consulate in Constanta, a port on the Romanian Black Sea coast.

Congress. The People’s Movement Party in opposition on Saturday appointed
a new president and leadership team during an extraordinary congress. Eugen
Tomac, the party’s executive president, is the new leader. He is replacing Traian
Basescu, a senator in the current Parliament and former president of Romania
between 2004 and 2014. The main goal of the future leadership is to prepare the
party for the upcoming euro-parliamentary and presidential elections of 2019
and the parliamentary elections of 2020.

Drill. The 2018 Dacian Eagle
exercise, which involves 200 Romanian and 300 American military, is under way
at the air base in Campia Tuzlii, in the centre. The American aircraft
participating in the maneuvers belong to the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
The exercise, which comes to an end in two months’ time, is meant to develop
bilateral cooperation in the field.

EU. The Romanian minister for
agriculture and rural development Petre Daea attends a meeting of the EU Agriculture
and Fisheries Council in Luxembourg on Monday. Talks are expected to focus on
the legislative package with respect to the Common Agricultural Policy
post-2020 which the European Commission published on 1st of June.
According to a statement by the agriculture ministry in Bucharest, the change
of a number of regulations within the Common Fisheries Policy and the situation
of the agricultural market will also be discussed.

Car registrations. The number of registrations
of new cars rose in Romania by almost 30% in the first five months of the year
compared with the same period last year to exceed 47,000 cars, according to official
figures. Also, most of the cars bought are second-hand. Almost 200,000 used cars
have been registered since the beginning of the year. At the end of 2017, there
were almost 8 million cars in Romania, of which more than 1 million in the
capital Bucharest.

Republic of Moldova. The Republic of Moldova (an ex-Soviet state with a majority Romanian-speaking population) will request at the United
Nations the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the break-away region of
Transdniester, in the east of the country. A draft resolution in this sense
will be debated on the 22nd of June. Around 1,000 Russian military from
the former 14th Soviet Army are currently in Transdniester to guard
arms and ammunition stores, as well as 500 peace troops deployed in the
security area at the Dniester. 15,000 troops subordinated to the separatist
regime in Tiraspol are also in the area. Transdniester broke away with Chisinau
following an armed conflict in 1992.