September 18, 2018 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 18.09.2018, 19:29

SUMMIT At the end of the ‘Three Seas
Initiative’ Summit, which took place in Bucharest in the past two days,
Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis said the summit can strengthen the economic
development and can contribute to the EU consolidation. In his opinion,
increased inter-connectivity as well as the economic convergence will contribute
to a better cohesion inside the EU. The Romanian official went on to say that
the initiative was aimed at giving an impetus to business contacts and
investment in the region and announced a decision to accept Germany as a state
partner. In turn, the European Commission president, Jean Claude Juncker, at
his first participation in the event, has voiced his support for the ‘Three
Seas Initiative’ adding that the rule of law is essential and investments have
no sense in its absence. The European official also had a brief meeting at the
airport with Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila. Also attending the
Summit, the US Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, said that Romania can rely on
the United States in this respect. The next summit of the ‘Three Seas
Initiative’ will be taking place in Slovenia. ‘The Three Seas Initiative’ is an
informal political platform at presidential level, which brings together 12 EU
countries.

REFERENDUM Romania’s left wing government approved on Tuesday the technical
details concerning the staging of a referendum on redefining the family in
early October. Prime Minister Dancila has called on the institutions involved
in staging the referendum to show maximum responsibility and take the necessary
action shortly. On Monday, Romania’s Constitutional Court ruled that the law on
revising the Constitution to define that the family is the freely consented
marriage between a man and a woman and not between spouses as it is at present,
observes the constitutional provisions. The
law on revising the Constitution in the sense of redefining the concept of
family is based on a citizens’ initiative of some Christian organizations that
managed to obtain 3 million signatures. The initiative is being contested by
the associations defending the civil rights and liberties, including those of
sexual minorities.

MEETING Heads of state and government from the EU
countries are to convene in Salzburg, Austria, on Wednesday and Thursday for
talks over the final stage of the Brexit negotiations. The participants are
also expected to have their say on staging an extraordinary session of the
European Council on this issue. The proposal was launched by the European
Council president, Donald Tusk, who recalled that all the details must be
completed so that the UK could leave the Union as scheduled, in March 2019.

CCR
Romania’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday rejected as ungrounded a notification
by president Klaus Iohannis over amendments to the law on the functioning of
the Higher Council of Magistracy (CSM), Romanian news agency AGERPRESS reports.
According to Iohannis, the amendments bear on the CSM’s constitutional role as
a guarantor of the independence of the judiciary as well as the good
functioning of the legal inspections. Also on Tuesday, the court admitted the
president’s notification on the law on serving sentences, which it described as
unconstitutional as a whole. The CCR has postponed for September 25th
the assessment of the president’s notification over the law on the status of
judges and prosecutors. We recall that Klaus Iohannis has lashed out at the
latest amendments to penal legislation, which have also been criticized by the
opposition parties in Romania and contested by the country’s High Court of
Cassation and Justice.

(translated by bill)