November 8, 2013 UPDATE

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România Internațional, 08.11.2013, 12:01

INTERNAL POLITICS – Romanian president Traian Basescu on Friday has called on the Government to re-negotiate its commitments towards the IMF, the European Commission and the World Bank that have recently ended their visit to Bucharest. The head of state believes the commitments of the Government leaves room for little chance for economic growth. On the other hand, the president has accused the ruling coalition of trying to monopolize the audiovisual sector, including the public television and radio. The president spoke of an emergency ordinance of the Government regarding the Insolvency Code, a document which the Constitutional Court has ruled unconstitutional, as well the law on the functioning of the Romanian public television and radio stations, which the had of state has submitted to Parliament for debate again.

NEW VISA PROGRAM – Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday has launched the project entitled “E-VISA”, an online portal facilitating access to visas. The purpose of the project, co-financed from the Social European Fund, is to enhance the system of processing Romanian visa applications filed by foreign citizens. The new service will allow visa applicants to file their application online. The main beneficiaries of the project are tourists, business people and teachers. At the same time, the E-VISA system will provide Romanian ambassadors abroad with a work tool, allowing them to better manage and solve visa applications. The project will unfold over a period of 7 months and will be implemented in 135 of Romania’s diplomatic offices worldwide.

LINK WITH TERRORIST CELL – Four Afghan citizens on Friday were declared undesirable over a period of 15 years by the Bucharest Court of Appeal, and are to be expelled from Romania. According to the Romanian Intelligence Service, the four were members of an Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist cell and were carrying out extremist and radical activities of a propagandistic nature, posing a threat to national security. The Romanian Intelligence Service had been monitoring their activity since 2012.

ROSIA MONTANA – A special committee assessing the Rosia Montana cyanide-mining project in central Romania on Thursday night concluded its debates over the issue and is to cast a vote on it on Monday. Endorsed by the government in late October, the controversial project, regulating gold and silver mining by means of cyanide in Rosia Montana, has lately sparked off large-scale protests in Romania and abroad.

MOLDOVA – The summit in Vilnius will represent for the ex-soviet Republic of Moldova a historic moment of a one-way commitment to European integration, state secretary with the Romanian Foreign Ministry Bogdan Aurescu has today said. He participated in the public debates on the Eastern Partnership, the Summit in Vilnius and the Republic of Moldova’s European Integration Prospects. We recall that in three weeks time, the Republic of Moldova will ratify the agreement of association and free trade with the EU.