January 31, 2014
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România Internațional, 31.01.2014, 12:00
Romanian president Traian Basescu is paying a working visit to Germany, says a communiqué issued by the presidency office in Bucharest. According to the same sources, Basescu will have talks with German president, Joachim Gauck and with Hans — Gert Pottering, former president of the European Parliament.
US secretary of state John Kerry will tomorrow have a first meeting with the main leaders of the Ukrainian opposition at the Security Conference underway in Munich, high-ranking US officials have been quoted by France Press as saying. During a phone call with opposition representatives, Kerry has already expressed his support for the European integration of Ukraine and made an appeal for defending democracy through peaceful means. Although the power in Kiev has already made a series of concessions to the opposition, such as the sacking of Prime Minister Azarov, the abrogation of some harsh legislation, as well as the introduction of amnesty for protesters, the situation in Ukraine remains tense. President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the association agreement with the EU in November sparked off a series of antigovernment protests.
Although defeated one-nil by Ukraine, Romania’s national futsal team has qualified for the quarter finals of the European Championship in Antwerp, Belgium. In the first game Romanians thrashed 6-1 the eleven of Belgium, which will be up against Ukraine on Saturday. In the group’s ranking, Ukraine has three points, same as Romania, while Belgium has no point. The first two teams in the group’s standings will play in the quarter finals. Romania’s national fusbal side has for the third time qualified for a European Championship.
The blizzard and heavy snowfalls of the past week have been followed by a wave of cold with temperatures plunging to — 22 degrees Celsius in the northeast of Romania. In the country’s southeastern regions, which bear the brunt of the latest arctic wave, a motorway and a couple of national roads are still closed down, hundreds of towns and villages have been isolated and thousands of households left without electricity. Over 70 passenger trains have been cancelled, while others have reported significant delays, due to operations of removing snow from the tracks. Both in Bucharest and in 14 other counties affected by the extreme weather, schools are still closed right before the inter-semestrial holidays.
Romanian president Traian Basescu has today called on Prime Minister Ponta to issue an emergency ordinance aimed at amending the Criminal Procedure Code. The president has mentioned the amendments were requested as early as September last year by the High Court of Cassation and Justice and by the National Anti-corruption Directorate. The new amendments are to be operated among other things, on the controversial article 140, under which prosecutors can ask for a warrant only after the criminal investigation is officially launched. Investigators say the interception becomes useless in this case since, under the present code the criminals must be informed about the interception of their phone calls. Both the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code are to come into effect on Saturday. The Prime Minister has recollected that it was the president who promulgated the two documents in their current form.
Half of the Romanians interviewed believe that the present Constitution should and must be amended, shows an INSCOP poll conducted upon the request of daily Adevarul. Only 14% of the interviewees refused or refrained from giving an answer to the question on the necessity of changing the fundamental law. As for the amendments, 82% of those questioned responded that a good measure would be that aimed at fighting party switching among the Romanian MPs. According to the poll, 63% of the Romanians are in favour of reducing the president’s mandate from five to four years and half of them would stand for a single-chamber Parliament as compared to only 30% who would vote for a two-chamber legislature. The poll was conducted between January the 16th and 21st, when 1054 people were questioned. We recall the referendum for changing the Constitution is due in May concurently with the Euro-parliamentarian election.
