25 July, 2018 UPDATE

Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news

România Internațional, 25.07.2018, 19:58

VISIT Currently on a formal visit to Montenegro, Romania’s Prime
Minister Viorica Dancila on Wednesday held talks with the country’s president
Milo Djukanovic. The two officials agreed to step up cooperation in the field
of energy as well as in tourism, education and culture. According to a
government communiqué, the Romanian Prime Minister has congratulated Montenegro
on its European and Euro-Atlantic progress, a project Romania has supported all
these years. Viorica Dancila on Wednesday also met her Montenegrin counterpart
Dusko Markovic. The two officials stood for deepened bilateral relations particularly
in the economic field, stepped up trade exchanges and boosted cooperation in
the field of energy, environment, tourism and internal affairs. Prime Minister
Dancila highlighted the importance Romania’s upcoming EU presidency would
attach to the EU’s enlargement policy and reiterated the firm commitment to
Montenegro’s EU accession. According to Bucharest, Montenegro’s NATO
integration is a major contribution to stability in the Western Balkans and to
the elimination of the security threats in this region. Montenegro is the first
stop in the Romanian Prime Minister’s three day tour in the region, which will
also take her to the Republic of Macedonia.

SUPPORT Athens has activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism following
the wildfires that engulfed the Attica region, killing at least 79 people and
wounding more than 200. Several countries have offered help, including Romania,
which on Wednesday dispatched two planes, a C-27 Spartan, designed to
extinguish fires, and a C-130 Hercules, for logistical support. Three days of
national mourning have been declared in Greece. The wildfires have apparently been
caused by a heat wave that hit the country, with temperatures of over 40
degrees Celsius, and extended rapidly because of the gale-force wind, which
reached 75 km per hour. Authorities are now considering the possibility of arson
in some cases.

AMBASSADOR Upon the nomination of Adrian Zuckerman as the new US ambassador in
Bucharest, Romania’s Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu on Wednesday said he was
glad the United States had appointed an ambassador who had connections with
Romania. Melescanu voiced his conviction the strategic partnership between the
two countries would go on an upward trend. According to a White House
communiqué, US president Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate
lawyer Adrian Zuckerman as the US ambassador to Romania. Zuckerman, who was
born in Romania and immigrated to the USA when he was 10, is fluent in Romanian
and currently a partner with a lawyer firm in New York specialized in real
estate. Zuckerman has been close to the Trump family for two decades being also
a well-known member of the New York business circles. If endorsed by Congress,
Zuckerman will replace the outgoing ambassador Hans Klemm.

COURT Romania’s Constitutional Court (CCR)
is to discuss on September 17th a notification from the country’s
president, Klaus Iohannis, over the amendments to the Penal Code and the Law on
the prevention, investigation and punishing corruption acts, CCR officials told
the news agency AGERPRES on Wednesday. The president on Wednesday notified the
Court over a series of amendments brought to the Penal Code in Parliament,
which would violate the fundamental law as well as the way in which they were
endorsed in an extraordinary session. Among the articles contested by the
president is the redefinition of the abuse in office, the organized crime group
and the shortened limitation periods. After the final vote in Parliament earlier
this month, president Iohannis has lashed out at the amendments, which he has
deemed as either useless or toxic and harmful adding that he will make use of
all the constitutional instruments to contest them. The latest Penal Code amendments
have also attracted a lot of heat from the opposition parties and their
notifications as well as those brought in by the country’s Highest Court of
Cassation and Justice are to be debated upon by the CCR on September 17th.

(translated by bill)