January 9, 2014 UPDATE
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Florentin Căpitănescu, 09.01.2014, 12:02
MEETING – Romanian Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean met with his Lithuanian counterpart Linas Linkevičius. Lithuania held the six-month rotating presidency of the EU up until December 31. The two officials discussed, among others, about Romania’s involvement in the rail project linking the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Moreover the two underscored the importance of NATO’s open-door policy, given that 2014 will mark 10 years since Romania and Lithuania’s accession to NATO. The meeting of the two officials follows Corlatean’s participation in the informal meeting held in Lithuania.
EU – Greece, the country that holds the six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union, will support Romania in its Schengen accession efforts, Greek Minister for Public Order and Citizen Protection Nikolaos Georgios-Dendias said on Thursday. The Greek official will be presiding the Justice and Home Affairs Council for the next six months. On Wednesday, Titus Corlatean said Romania would continue its efforts to meet the political accession criteria, recalling that Bucharest had met all technical criteria. Originally slated for March 2011, Romania’s Schengen accession has been repeatedly postponed due to opposition from Member States regarding insufficient reform of the judiciary and the lack of progress in combating organized crime.
NATO – Deputy Secretary for European and Eurasian affairs at the United States Department of State Victoria Nuland on Friday and Saturday will be on an official visit to Bucharest, where she will be meeting President Traian Basescu, Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean as well as other Romanian high-ranking officials and members of the civil society. Talks will be focusing on bilateral relations, regional problems as well as on Romania’s efforts to strengthen the rule of law. Victoria Nuland is on a European tour also including the Netherlands, Germany, Lithuania and France, states which alongside Romania are Unites States’ allies within NATO.
STATISTICS – Romania’s trade deficit in the first eleven months of 2013 went down by 3.5 billion Euro as compared to the similar period in 2012, the National Statistics Institute announced on Thursday. Exports over January 1 and November 30 exceeded 45 billion euro, while imports accounted for 50 billion euro. As compared to the similar period in 2012, exports grew by 9%, while imports went down by 0.4%.
TENNIS – The pair made of Romanian tennis player Monica Niculescu and Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic on Thursday qualified to the semifinals of the women’s doubles at the WTA tennis tournament in Hobart, Australia, with 250,000 dollars prize money. The pair snatched a 6-2, 4-6,10-5 win against the Japanese Shoko Aoyama and Miki Miyamura. In the semifinals Niculescu and Zakopalova will be facing the pair made up of Yung Jan Chan of Taiwan and Janette Husarova of Slovakia. We recall Monica Niculescu and Klara Zakopalova last week won the finals of the doubles tournament in Shenzhen, China.
