November 10, 2014
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România Internațional, 10.11.2014, 12:00
Romanian Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean has announced his resignation amid allegations on the inappropriate unfolding of the first presidential election round at polling stations abroad one November 2nd, when thousands of Romanian nationals were unable to cast their ballots. Corlatean said he decided to resign in order to abide by the law. The Romanian official has referred to a law issued by the Central Electoral Office, under which there was no legal ground for setting up more polling stations abroad. The Central Electoral Office says in a communiqué that the Foreign Ministry is exclusively in charge of the good functioning of the polling stations abroad and that aspect has been made clear by a decision, which rules out any legal impediment to setting up new polling stations abroad. Before stepping down Corlatean recalled the Foreign Ministry had decided to increase the number of booths and stamps in every polling station. On Sunday the Romanians living in the big European cities, London, Dublin, Madrid, Paris and Vienna staged protests against the small number of polling stations and the shortage of personnel in the election committees. For the second time in a row several big cities in Romania have seen rallies of solidarity with the Romanians in the Diaspora asking for the Foreign Minister’s resignation, which was also called for by the country’s president Traian Basescu. The presidential runoff will be opposing on November 16th the left-wing Prime Minister Victor Ponta to Klaus Iohannis, the incumbent mayor of the city of Sibiu, in central Romania.
National Anti-corruption prosecutors have today called on the president of Romania to give the green light for the penal prosecution of former Interior Minister Cristian David on charges of bribe taking and money laundering. According to sources with the National Anti-corruption Directorate, during his term in office, in February 2008, David allegedly received 500 thousand euros to allow someone to purchase a 15-hectare plot of land in Buzau. The prosecutors have recently decided the preventive detention of the former Chamber of Deputies vice-president Viorel Hrebenciuc, on corruption charges in a file on the illegal return of farm and forestland.
A national commemoration of the flight MH17 disaster takes place in Amsterdam today. We recall the plane was shot down in a region controlled by the pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine. Out of the 298 victims on board 196 were Dutch nationals. The ceremony is expected to bring together relatives and friends of the victims, king Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima and Princess Beatrix as well as the country’s Prime Minister Mark Rutted. The authorities in the Nethelrands and Malaysia last Wednesday agreed to maintain pressure in order to get access to the crash site in Ukraine and bring the culprits to the court. The plane is believed to have been brought down with a Russian-made surface-to-air missile owned by the rebel troops. Russia is blaming the Ukrainian forces for the incident.
Romania will this week request an EU reinbursement of over 200 million euros through the operational sectoral programme on Human Resources Development POSDRU. By the end of the year Romania will be sending to the Commision reinbursement applications for nearly 500 million euros. So, the total amount of reimbursed money through the POSDRU programme is estimated around 700 million euros at the end of the year. According to the Ministry of European Funds, the authorities in Bucharest were given the green light for these applications after the European Commission’s audit mission in early October in Romania had signalled positive results.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama is paying a historic visit to Belgrade, the first by an Albanian official in the past 68 years. High on the agenda are talks with his Serbian conunterpart Aleksandar Vucic as well as the conclusion of several accords. Initially due on October 22nd, Rama’s visit was rescheduled after the incidents in the wake of Serbia vs. Albania football game in Euro 2016 qualifiers. Experts believe the visit could ease the tensions affecting the bilateral relations, soured after the independence of former Serbian province with an Albanian majority, Kosovo.
A Romanian-Dutch pair made up of Horia Tecau and Jean-Julien Rojer in London will today be playing their debut match in the men’s version of the Champions Tournament, which brings together the world’s top eight tennis players as well as the world’s top eight pairs in 2014. Tecau and Rojer will be facing the Brazilian – Austrian pair made up of Bruno Soares and Alexander Peya, respectively. We recall that in the Women Champions’ Tournament in Singapore, ATP 3rd seeded Romanian Simona Halep reached as far as the finals where she conceded defeat to world leader Serena Williams.
