March 24, 2025 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 24.03.2025, 19:52
CSAT – The first meeting of the Supreme Defense Council during the mandate of interim president Ilie Bolojan is scheduled for Friday. High on the agenda are four topics, including the stage and prospects of the conflict in Ukraine, as well as the implications for Romania and Bucharest’s standpoint in the context of the peace talks. Romania’s response to the EU’s plans to enhance its defense capabilities will also be addressed. Interim president Ilie Bolojan explained that EU members will be able to jointly carry out purchases of military equipment, which will be an opportunity for Romania. In the coming period, both the defense and the economy ministries, as well as private companies operating in the field of defense and other companies supplying the automotive industry with components that can be transferred to the defense industry, will have to find ways to enter European military production associations in order to be able to carry out joint acquisitions. On Thursday, Ilie Bolojan will attend a summit devoted to Ukraine hosted by Paris. Attending the meeting will be leaders of Kyiv’s allies from the so-called “coalition of the willing”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also expected to attend. Ilie Bolojan recently said that Romania will serve as a logistics hub to support Ukraine and will not send troops to the neighboring country under any circumstances.
Visit – The interim speaker of Romania’s Senate, Mircea Abrudean, will go, on Tuesday, on an official visit to the Republic of Moldova (ex-Soviet state with a majority Romanian-speaking population), where he will meet with the head of state, Maia Sandu, with Prime Minister Dorin Recean, with the President of the Parliament, Igor Grosu and with other dignitaries. The agenda of the discussions includes topics such as the intensification of cooperation between the two countries in key sectors and the European path of Moldova. On the other hand, Mircea Abrudean will pay an official visit to France, between March 31 and April 1, where he will have a meeting with his counterpart, Gerard Larcher, and with the Secretary General of the OECD, Mathias Cormann. The program of the visit also includes meetings with local authorities and the Diaspora. The visit is meant to consolidate the existing Strategic Partnership between the two countries.
Vote – 6,085 applications for postal voting out of the 6,496 submitted in this regard on the portal www.votstrainatate.ro for the presidential election met the legal conditions, the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP) announced on Monday. According to a press release from the AEP, the period for registering as a postal voter abroad ended on March 20, and all validated applications met the legal provisions. At the same time, Romanian citizens abroad could register until March 4, as a voter abroad at a polling station, with 2,611 applications for voting at the station being submitted, of which 2,238 met the legal conditions.
OSCE – The Romanian Defense Minister (MApN), Angel Tîlvăr, met on Monday with representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), on which occasion he reviewed the support provided by Romania to the Republic of Moldova in terms of defense and made an analysis of the security situation in the Black Sea region. According to the MApN, Minister Angel Tîlvăr met with Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the Transdniestrian Settlement Process, Ambassador Thomas Lenk, with the Head of the OSCE Mission to the Republic of Moldova, Kelly Keiderling, and with the Ambassador of Finland to Romania, Leena Liukkonen. Both the Romanian side and the OSCE representatives emphasized the need to continue the discussions related to the resolution of the Transdniestrian process, while respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova, highlighting the very important role of the OSCE in achieving this goal. (LS)
