„EU must stay united and powerful”, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis says
„The European Union should stay united and powerful in order to ensure its further enlargement allowing other nations to share its values”, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis pointed out while in Italy where he attended the EU summit in Rome. President Iohannis noted that the summit’s final statement did not mention an alleged „two-speed Europe”. The move was seen as a success for Romania and other EU smaller nations expressing their support for a Europe which „must be one, indivisible and strong thanks to the strength of all the sovereign member nation states”, as Polish PM Beata Szydlo said in a statement. While meeting officials at the Accademia di Romania in Rome on Sunday, President Iohannis expressed his optimism concerning the EU’s future as he thought that the European project could regain its credibility.
Romanian deputy prime minister replaced
Romania’s deputy prime minister was replaced following a decision of the country’s governing coalition on Monday. The replacement comes after Daniel Constantin, who was also an environment minister, had been involved in disputes with Senate Speaker Călin Popescu Tăriceanu, also the leader of the governing Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE). Graţiela Gavrilescu, currently a minister for parliamentary affairs, is expected to become the new environment minister while Viorel Ilie, leader of ALDE group in the Senate, would replace Ms. Gavrilescu as minister for parliamentary affairs. A former deputy mayor of the southern Romanian city of Ploieşti, in Prahova county, Graţiela Gavrilescu also served as environment minister in the government of former PM Victor Ponta (2014 – 2015).
Letter to Russia’s President Vladimit Putin rejected
The Youth Organisation of Romania’s opposition Popular Movement Party (PMP) intended to send a letter to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Monday. The move came as Romania celebrated its union with Bessarabia (today’s former Soviet Republic of Moldova) on March 27. The region was part of the Greater Romania between 1918-1940. The PMP group called on Mr. Putin to apollogise to families subject to mass deportations which occured following the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Norther Bucovina in June 1940. „The apollogies would be a first step in order to ensure that similar horrors of the past were never expected to happen again”, the letter noted. The Russian embassy in Bucharest refused to receive the PMP letter.
French La Fayette frigate involved in a military exercise with Romanian Navy
A Romanian Navy force starts a military exercise along with the French frigate La Fayette on Monday. The La Fayette frigate, capable of carrying air-defence missiles and designed to accommodate Panther, as well as heavy range helicopters, includes five types of ships, the first of which, F 710, was commissioned in 1996. The La Fayette Class incorporates a number of stealth features – the sides of the vessel are sloped at 10° to minimise radar cross section, surfaces have been coated in radar-absorbent paint and the profiles of external features have been reduced. The ship’s surface-to-surface missile is the Exocet MM40 from MBDA (formerly EADS Aerospatiale). The ship’s surface-to-air missile system is the Thales Crotale Naval CN2. The ship’s main gun on the bow deck is the DCNS 100mm which fires a 13.5kg shell to a range of 16km. The gun has a firing rate of 80 rounds a minute.
Alexandru Danga – RADOR
