April 26, 2023

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 26.04.2023, 13:55

Visit. The Austrian Minister of the Interior, Gerhard Karner, has held talks in Bucharest, today, with his Romanian counterpart Lucian Bode, the Romanian Ministry of the Interior says in a press release. Before the meeting, the Austrian official stated that the Schengen area was non-functional and that he couldn’t offer a date for Romania’s accession. According to him, the interest of both countries is that this system works. It is very important that we meet in order to be able to discuss security issues that concern both countries. We had very clear, difficult discussions, but we had them. There are also many common points, he said. Gerhard Karner added that the two countries need the support of the European Commission for safer borders. We recall that at the Justice and Home Affairs Council held at the end of last year, the Austrian minister opposed the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to Schengen.

Bucharest 9. The Romanian Minister of Defense, Angel
Tîlvăr, co-chairs, today, together with his Polish counterpart, Mariusz
Blaszczak, a new meeting of the Defense Ministers in the Bucharest 9 Format,
held in Warsaw, Poland. According to a press release, this is an opportunity to
harmonize the positions of the B9 states on the eastern flank of the Alliance
in order to promote and reflect common security interests on the allied agenda,
including in run up to the NATO Summit in Vilnius, this summer. Also, both aspects regarding the current
security challenges triggered by the
latest developments of the war in Ukraine and the regional and Euro-Atlantic
implications will be addressed, as well as the need to keep supporting the most
vulnerable partners in the region, subject to hybrid threats from Russia, namely
the Republic of Moldova, Georgia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina.

Protest. Education trade
unionists picketed on Tuesday the headquarters of the Government in Bucharest,
dissatisfied with salaries in the system, but also with the talks over the Executive’s
intention to cap personnel expenses at the level of 2022, with additional
negative impact for employees in the education system. A protest has also been
announced for today. The trade union federations have also planned a
large-scale protest on May 10th, with some 15 thousands
participants. If their demands are not resolved, the unions are warning that, at the end of May, a general strike could be
staged, leading to the disruption of the
training-educational process, including by impacting the national exams.

Russia. Moscow is
pursuing a hostile policy towards the Republic of Moldova – said the Minister
of Foreign Affairs in the pro-Western Government in Chisinau, Nicu Popescu,
commenting on the ban on entering Russia for a number of Moldovan officials.
For many years, Russia has resorted to a hostile policy towards the
Republic of Moldova. It has supported separatism, imposed an embargo, and there
are troops of the Russian army on the territory of our republic. The Russian
Federation regards the Republic of Moldova as an enemy, Popescu said.
Previously, the first secretary of the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova in
Moscow, Valeriu Manea, was declared persona non grata in Russia, as a measure
of retaliation against a decision adopted by Chisinau against a Russian diplomat
who had behaved inappropriately towards the border police.

Exercises. EAGLE
SHIELD and EAGLE ROYAL exercises are taking place at the Capu
Midia Range, in Constanța county (south-east), led by the French soldiers from
the NATO Battle Group stationed in Romania. Romanian, American, Luxembourgish
and Dutch soldiers are also participating in the two training sequences, the
objective being the joint training of the allied troops. The exercises focus on
practicing anti-aircraft defense capabilities through combat firing with rocket
launcher systems and anti-aircraft artillery guns against aerial targets. After
the launch of the Russian invasion in neighboring Ukraine, on February 24,
2022, France deployed a MAMBA air defense system at Capu Midia, which can
launch medium-range surface-to-air missiles that can hit targets up to 100 km
away.

Gopo Gala. The Gopo Awards
Gala – the most important event dedicated to cinema in Romania – awarded, on
Tuesday evening, the best films from the industry released in cinemas or on
‘View on Demand’ platforms in 2022. The film Metronome won most of
the awards, while the audience award went to the film Teambuilding. The Gopo
Awards ceremony was also marked by special moments, occasioned by the
celebration of 100 years since the birth of the renowned filmmaker Ion Popescu Gopo
(1923-1989). Through his artistic creations, Ion Popescu Gopo became a great
personality of Romanian cinema, winning, in 1957, the Palme d’or
award at the Cannes International Film Festival. (MI)