October 9, 2014 UPDATE

A look at some of the top stories in Romania today.

România Internațional, 09.10.2014, 12:15

Russian natural gas deliveries to Romania on Thursday dropped 15% below normal, said the Romanian delegate minister for energy, Razvan Nicolescu. He recalled that Gazprom recently made public its intentions to cut deliveries of gas to Romania and last month even slashed its supplies for one day. The Romanian authorities say the population will not be affected by the cuts, even if Russian gas deliveries ceased altogether until spring next year. Minister Razvan Nicolescu said that available gas reserves are enough to cover demand for the entire winter.

Romania’s president Traian Basescu said on Thursday that the government must be prepared to take over the Petrotel refinery in Ploiesti, unless its owner, the Russian giant Lukoil, resumes production. Basescu described as a threat the announcement made by the Lukoil management to close down its refinery unless prosecutors unfreeze its crude oil stockpiles and assets. The president said such an approach was inadmissible. The activity at the Petrotel platform was temporarily suspended after searches were conducted last week by prosecutors. Investigations are under way over suspicions of tax evasion and money laundering accounting for 230 million euros worth of damages. Active in Romania for the last 15 years, Lukoil has a network in this country of 300 petrol stations, with a 20% share of the internal fuel market.

The Supreme Council of Magistrates in Romania on Thursday decided to call on the Judicial Inspection Service to investigate statements by certain politicians related to the magistrates’ activity. The Council’s members have unanimously called for an assessment of the comments made by president Traian Basescu, prime minister Victor Ponta and Liberal MP Varujan Vosganian about ongoing investigations. The Council has urged politicians to respect in their public speeches the limits to the freedom of expression and not to jeopardise the judicial system. Romania’s prosecutor general, Tiberiu Nitu, says the threats made by the Russian group Lukoil to close down its Petrotel refinery were putting pressure on prosecutors.

The foreign ministry in Bucharest has underlined the considerable efforts made by Romania in recent years to assume responsibility for its past and condemn the denial of Holocaust and anti-Semitism. In a press release made public on Thursday, on National Day for Commemorating the Holocaust, the Romanian foreign ministry paid tribute to the memory of Holocaust victims all over the world and expressed its solidarity with the survivors of the tragic events of WWII. The ministry reiterated its determination to further strengthen the legislative and institutional instruments able to prevent and punish anti-Semitism and any other form of racism, xenophobia, racial discrimination and intolerance.

Romania’s education minister Remus Pricopie on Thursday attended an international conference on a new action plan for Europe held in Brussels under the aegis of the European Council’s Italian presidency. The conference was attended by over 80 government officials and representatives of civil society and the business community, who mainly discussed issues such as increasing Europe’s competitiveness and ways to stimulate job creation in the European Union.

The pro-western president of the majority Romanian speaking republic of Moldova, Nicolae Timofti said he did not have big expectations from the Commonwealth of Independent States summit hosted by Minsk on Friday. Timofti said he would only travel to the Belarussian capital to consolidate bilateral relations with certain states in this regional structure which brings together the former Soviet republics with the exception of the three Baltic states and Georgia. Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, will not attend the summit, which commentators describe as a structure used by Moscow to maintain its dominant role in its former area of influence. The Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia this year signed association and free trade agreements with the European Union.