The Week in Review 21-27 April

A roundup of the week's main stories

România Internațional, 26.04.2014, 16:58

Floods hit the south and south-west of Romania

Romania needs long term solutions to prevent flooding, said Prime Minister Victor Ponta after visiting the villages affected by floods this past week. He also said that, in the absence of other viable solutions, authorities have the obligation to fund costly infrastructure works in the flood-prone areas, because moving the locals from those areas would be too difficult. In the past few days, heavy rainfalls have seriously damaged counties in the south and south-west of the country. In Teleorman and Olt counties, hydrologists have even issued a code red warning for flooding. The Government has approved the allocation of 53 million lei (approximately 12 million Euros) for emergency works in Teleorman County, which has been the most severely affected by flooding, with 27 villages covered by water and hundreds of hectares of land and households damaged.

The campaign for European Parliament elections started on April 25th

The official campaign for the European Parliament elections of May 25th started on Friday. Competing for the 32 seats allocated to Romania are 15 parties and political and electoral alliances, as well as 8 independent candidates. The main competitors are the ruling alliance made up of the Social Democratic Party, the National Union for the Progress of Romania, and the Conservative Party, the opposition National Liberal Party and Liberal Democratic Party, the co-governing Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the Dan Diaconescu People’s Party in the opposition. The ruling alliance is backed by the European Socialists, the Democratic Liberal Party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians by the European People’s Party, while the National Liberal Party is supported by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. For the European Parliament elections of May 25th, the Romanian Foreign Ministry will organize 190 polling stations for the Romanians abroad: 18 in Spain, 15 in Italy, 8 in the Republic of Moldova and 6 in France. Also, 5 polling stations each will be organized in the US, Germany and Belgium, as well as in Afghanistan, for the Romanian soldiers on mission under the aegis of NATO.

A token strike of the Romanian railway workers upset the passenger railway traffic.

On Wednesday, some 300 trains stopped for two hours in stations, affecting thousands of passengers. Romanian railway workers went on strike being dissatisfied with their wages, the loss of their right to free railway travel and a possible lay off of 2500 freight railway employees. The employees of the Romanian Railway Company, a state-owned company, complain about overtime, diminished or even suspended salary entitlements as well as precarious working conditions. Trade unions have announced that they will stop the protests during the negotiations with the Transport Ministry officials over the signing of the new collective employment agreements. For several years now, the authorities have been trying to reorganize and privatize the state-owned railway companies, but the latter continue to report big losses and debts.

Romanian authorities focus on the situation in Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova

Given the increasingly tense situation in Ukraine, Romania believes it must be the first state to support the efforts of the Moldovan authorities for a rapid EU accession, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said on Radio Romania. The Romanian Prime Minister believes that the developments in Ukraine and in the region can pose a danger to the ex-Soviet Republic of Moldova with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population, but they can also be an opportunity.

Victor Ponta: “It is up to us to help them take this opportunity to join the European Union faster than they thought and to consider getting NATO membership.”

In another development, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier have announced in Chisinau that the EU will give the Republic of Moldova technical and financial aid after the signing of the Association Agreement, so that it may go ahead with the reforms. The Republic of Moldova initialed the Association Agreement in November 2013 and is going to sign it in late June.

The Romanian city of Craiova hosts the International Shakespeare Festival

The Southwestern city of Craiova is the venue for the 9th edition of the International Shakespeare Festival, one of the most important events of the kind in Romania and in Europe. The production “Much Ado about Nothing” directed by Max Webster and performed by the London-based Globe Theatre opened the festival on April 23rd, which will last until May 4th. Participating are such valuable troupes as the “Vahtangov Theatre” of Russia or the National Theatre of China, as well as theatre companies, schools or Philharmonic orchestras of South Africa, Lithuania, Armenia, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine and Romania.