July 14, 2022 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 14.07.2022, 20:00

PARADE The National Day parade in France was marked this year by the
war in Ukraine. Troops from 9 countries on NATO’s eastern flank, including 12
from Romania, paraded jointly with French military as a token of the unity of
NATO Allies and of solidarity with Ukraine, Radio Romania’s correspondent in
Paris reports. According to her, this year’s celebrations unfolded under the
motto ‘Partager la flame’ (Divide the Flame), with a dual meaning: to pay
homage to Hubert Germain, the last member of the French resistance against the
Nazi occupation, who died this year, and to hail the Olympic flame ahead the
Olympic Games Paris is due to stage in 2024. Romanian president Klaus Iohannis Thursday
sent president Macron a letter of congratulations and wishes of prosperity for
the French people. Iohannis highlighted the solidity and consistency of the
Strategic Partnership between Romania and France, built on common values and
excellent cooperation both at bilateral level and within the EU and other
international bodies. Bucharest celebrated France’s national day with a
reception at the French Embassy, attended by Romania’s Prime Minister Nicolae
Ciuca and by senior French officials.

ECONOMY Thanks to a
surprising 5.2% growth rate in Q1, the European Commission decided to update
its estimates on Romania’s economic growth this year, from 2.6% forecast in
March to 3.9% in its summer economic forecast made public on Thursday. The Commission
also operated a downward adjustment of its forecast for 2023, from 3.6% to 2.9%,
given that the growth trend is expected to slow down both globally and at EU
level. Private consumption and investments are expected to be the main growth
engines both this year and the next, whereas net exports will lead to a deeper
trade deficit, the Commission says.

VISIT Germany’s
foreign minister Annalena Baerbock will be on an official visit to Bucharest
and Constanţa on Friday, the German embassy in Bucharest announced. Annalena
Baerbock will co-chair the second ministerial conference of the Support
Platform for the Republic of Moldova together with her Romanian counterpart,
Bogdan Aurescu and the French state secretary for development, Francophonie, and international partnerships Chrysoula
Zacharopoulou. Also on Friday Annalena Baerbock will have meetings with PM Nicolae
Ciucă and foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu, focusing on bilateral and European
policy topics. In the Black Sea port of Constanţa the German official will
discuss with local officials and representatives of German companies about
Ukraine’s grain exports via Constanţa.

CENSUS The deadline for finalising the national population
and housing census has been extended by a week, from July 17 to 24, as the
current completion rate is below 90%. The organisers are hoping to bring the
rate up to 100% using fixed census locations and door-to-door operators. For the
first time in Romania, a first stage of the national census was conducted
online, with 11 million respondents registered, which is little under half of
the estimated resident population of Romania.

DRILL Over July 14 and 25 three Romanian warships take part in the
international exercise ‘Breeze 22’ staged and coordinated by the Bulgarian Navy
in the country’s territorial and the international waters of the Black Sea and
the Bulgarian port of Burgas. This year’s edition of the exercise has brought
together navy and air forces from Albania, Belgium, France, Georgia, Italy,
Latvia, Poland, Turkey and the USA. The drill is aimed at strengthening
tactical interoperability between the navy personnel and participating units
and at practicing conventional and non-conventional war procedures.

UKRAINE Addressing an international conference on the war crimes in
Ukraine held in The Hague, the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Thursday requested the creation of a special tribunal to investigate Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine. The country’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba also asked
for a special court trying the crime of aggression, defined as an attack by one
state against another. All we want is for the crime of aggression to not go
unpunished, Dmytro Kuleba said during the same conference. Political,
diplomatic and judicial leaders from around the world convened on Thursday for
a conference on the crimes committed in Ukraine since February 24. The European
Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders mentioned that 20,000 investigations
concerning war crimes in Ukraine have been opened. Around 14 European countries
are investigating these crimes, and a European Joint Investigation Team has
been set up, he added. Russia denies the abuses of which its troops are being
accused, which include shelling civilians, executions, and rapes, and in
exchange accuses Ukraine of crime wars. Meanwhile, scores of civilians were
killed or wounded on Thursday in a Russian missile attack on the town of Vinnytsia,
in central Ukraine. (AMP)