June 27, 2019 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 27.06.2019, 20:02
VISIT – On a working visit to Brussels, the Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila on Thursday had a meeting with the European Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn. The two discussed major European issues, at the end of Romanias term at the helm of the Council of the EU. One such issue is enlargement, which is a priority in foreign policy, as well as developments with regard to the EUs neighborhood policy. Romania was saluted for its effort to push forward the agenda in this regard during its six-month term.
NATO – The Romanian Defense Minister Gabriel Les stressed in Brussels on Thursday the need to strengthen the NATO posture in the Black Sea area. He was speaking at the meeting of the NATO Defense Ministers, where he also said that national investments and allied projects must become and important area of cooperation between the EU and NATO. On the sidelines of the event, Gabriel Les had two meetings, one with the French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly and the other with his Georgian counterpart Levan Izoria. With the French official he talked about bilateral cooperation, focusing on the need to render the French – Romanian strategic dialogue permanent. With Mr. Izoria, minister Les had an exchange of opinions about the security dynamics in the Black Sea area and the two countries contribution to international security.
REFERENDUM – Romanias Constitutional Court has upheld the result of the May 26 referendum on justice legislation. The debates were postponed on June 1, after the court registered a motion to dismiss the results of the popular vote. We recall that attendance at the polls was over 41%, way over the 30 percentage points needed to validate the results. At the same time, of the over 7 million Romanians participating, 6.5 million said yes answering the two questions which essentially defend the independence of the justice system and the fight against corruption.
DIASPORA – In Bucharest, Parliaments joint special committee in charge with drafting, amending and completing the legislative proposals on elections has decided that voting for the Romanians living abroad will last three days, more precisely Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The members of the committee have also decided that those who are still queuing in front of the polling stations at 9 p.m., when the stations are normally closed, will be allowed to vote anyway. The decision was made after on May 26th, many Romanians abroad queued for hours and some of them did not manage to cast their vote. The changes adopted by the committee will have to be endorsed in plenary session.
HEATWAVE – The Romanian Foreign Ministry has issued travel warnings for Greece, France, Italy and Slovenia. In Greece, the authorities say, there is a strong likelihood that forest fires may ignite, quickly spread by high winds. For Italy, a heat wave warning has been issued. Temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius or more are recorded in the northeast of Spain, while temperatures close to 40 degrees are expected in Germany and France. Extreme heat is also expected in Hungary, where a code orange alert has been issued for the west and the south. Slovenia too is facing a heat wave.
TENNIS – On Thursday, the Romanian tennis player Simona Halep (7 WTA) was defeated by the German Angelique Kerber (5 WTA), 6-4, 6-3, in the quarter finals of the WTA tournament in Eastbourne, Great Britain, with one million dollars in prize money. On Wednesday, Halep and Raluca Olaru qualified for the doubles semifinals, by defeating the pair made up of Alicja Rosolska of Poland and Zhaoxuan Yang of China. Next, the Romanian pair will play against Kirsten Flipkens (Belgium)-Bethanie Mattek- Sands (US).
