Croatia will support Romania’s accession to the Schengen area, President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović says
The Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, and his Croatian counterpart, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, have met on Monday in Bucharest. Ms. Kitarovic has said that Croatia will support Romania’s accession to the Schengen area and the two leaders expressed their will to deepen bilateral relations and to improve coordination inside the European Union and NATO. As Radio Romania reporter says, President Iohannis has said that the political dialogue between Romania and Croatia is excellent, while the economic relations could be significantly improved. The Romanian President has also spoken about the summit of Three Seas Initiative, which will be held in Romania, in 2018.
Klaus Iohannis: I will suggest that we set out a short list of feasible infrastructure projects, agreed by all participants, which might then be submitted to the European Commission, for example, in order to apply for cohesion funds, because there is exactly where they might fit.
The Croatian President has insisted that a development of the region’s infrastructure is needed and that next year’s Bucharest summit will focus right on that issue.
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović: We submitted a list of 150 projects worth 40 billion euros. We agreed that next year, at the summit in Bucharest, we will pull some projects which will show our citizen what the actual parts of this initiative are.
The Croatian President has added that her country firmly supports Romania’s accession to the Schengen area and the removal of the Verification and Cooperation Mechanism applied on Romania’s judiciary.
Romanian and Bulgarian Governments have had their fourth common working session, in Varna
The Governments of Romania and Bulgaria have met in Varna, on Tuesday, for their fourth common working session. Subjects on the two cabinets’ agenda include economic cooperation, transport and energy infrastructure, regional development and cross-border cooperation. The ministers are also focusing on issues related to the labor market, internal affairs and regional development. The Romanian Prime Minister, Mihai Tudose and the Interior Minister, Carmen Dan, along with Bulgarian authorities have taken part in the inauguration of a new border-crossing point, in Lipniţa-Kainardja. Both Romania and Bulgaria aim to accelerate the projects of the two bridges over the Danube and in that sense, Prime Minister Tudose has suggested his Bulgarian counterpart to connect the cities of Bucharest, Sofia and Athens by means of a fast-speed rail line. The common Government session has started with a meeting of the two prime ministers. Another subject to be discussed refers to the rotating Presidency of the European Council, which will be held by Bulgaria in the first semester of 2018 and a year later by Romania.
The perjury process against the Speaker of the Romanian Senate has been resumed at the Supreme Court
The process in which the Romanian Speaker of Senate, Calin Popescu Taricenu, is accused of perjury, has been resumed, on Tuesday, by the Supreme Court, after the judge who replaced the retired magistrate Anamaria Dascalu decided the reconsideration of evidences, citing a judgment by the European Court of Human Rights. The Senate Speaker has appeared in court for hearings. The file has been sent to the court in July, by prosecutors from the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) in Brasov, who accuse Mr. Tariceanu of lying in his testimony as a witness in the case against Prince Paul, Remus Truica and Dan Andronic, concerning the retrocession of an area in Snagov Forest and Baneasa farm. The case against the Social Democrat leader, Liviu Dragnea, is also resumed from the beginning on Tuesday, as the President of the Deputies Chamber is judged for inciting abuse of office and intellectual property theft, along with his ex-wife and former employees of the Child Protection agency in the county of Teleorman.
Mădălina Brotăcel
