🟦❌🟨 The general secretary of the National Liberal Party, Lucian Bode instructed the heads of the 41 regional branches of PNL to ask the Central Election Bureau (BEC) for the exclusion of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) from the 2024 local elections.

The motive? In February of this year, the liberal-social-democrat government pushed an emergency government ordinance (OUG) which required parties to register an "official election symbol" with BEC. The OUG was voted into law in early March, taking effect on March 8th. Once in effect, the OUG had a 1 month deadline for all parties to register this election symbol and AUR reportedly failed to do so by April 10th.

Without this election symbol a party can be disqualified.

For anyone wondering an OUG is a method through which the government can pass legislation even though, constitutionally speaking, it is barred from doing so and only the Parliament is allowed to pass laws. OUGs are government acts which have the same force as laws and with this power, the Romanian government is de-facto a 2nd legislative power beside the Romanian parliament. Of course, the Parliament rarely ever votes against and OUG or any draft that is proposed by any ministry because the government usually enjoys a parliamentary majority.

When the OUG was introduced in the Constitution it was argued that the Parliament could take too long to pass a law and Romania needed a quicker way to pass legislation, in extraordinary circumstances. All the Parliament had to do was read the draft and vote it, with the possibility of adding amendments. Of course, the government must justify the "emergency" when passing the ordinance but the justification is rarely scrutinised and the OUG is rarely shot down by the parliament.

Remains to be seen what happens with AUR next.

🔗 https://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-alegeri2024-27082355-exclusiv-directiva-pnl-pentru-toti-sefii-din-judete-solicitati-respingerea-aliantei-aur-birourile-electorale-descoperit.htm

🗽❌🇲🇩 Amnesty International, an UK-based NGO focusing on human rights criticised Moldova accusing the country of breaching humanitarian law in its ongoing war with Russian influence in Moldovan politics.

The yearly report prepared by Amnesty criticised the decision to outlaw and dissolve the Shor Party, the exclusion of the Chance Party members from participating in the 2023 Moldovan local elections as well as the forced closure of 20 news sites and 6 TV channels, most of them being based in Russia.

Amnesty notes that Moldova is denying entry to Russian citizens more often, noting the expulsion of 45 Russian diplomats since February 2022.

Lastly, the report mentioned the murder of Oleg Horjan (Oleg Khorzhan), the president of the Transnistrian communist party, who was an outspoken member of the opposition to the separatist regime in Tiraspol. He was sentenced by a Transnistrian court in 2018 to prison for 4 years, his sentence being voided by a Moldovan court. In 2022 Horjan was freed and murdered a year later. To this day who killed him is unknown.

🔗 https://www.agerpres.ro/politica-externa/2024/04/24/republica-moldova-a-incalcat-drepturi-ale-omului-pentru-a-contracara-influenta-rusa-amnesty-international--1286059

🌹🏆🇪🇺 A Romanian MEP is in the top of most votes missed in the European Parliament!

Social-democrat, Claudiu Manda, is 2nd behind Ioannis Lagos, a Greek MEP representing the fascist, Golden Dawn party, currently in prison for his political affiliation, for the most votes missed in the European Parliament.

Lagos has missed 63% of the votes since 2019 meanwhile Manda, who is not in prison, missed 43% of the votes. Lagos was arrested in 2021 and still attempted to vote, asking for a mobile voting station to be brought to his cell in Greece but by 2022 this process stopped.

Manda was the target of a corruption investigation in 2021 but his case was dismissed by judges. In the top 10 list of the MEPs who were absent from their duties is liberal Rareș Bogdan placing at no. 5, who, unlike Manda, can justify his absenteeism because he's one of the vice-presidents of PNL and has been involved in the PR department of the party.

🔗 https://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/politic/un-roman-este-pe-locul-2-in-topul-chiulangiilor-din-parlamentul-european-a-ratat-locul-1-in-fata-unuia-aflat-in-inchisoare.html

🌐🤝🇲🇩 NATO sent 700k EURs worth of medical equipment to Moldova.

The aid package is composed of 4k individual aid kits, 12k tourniquets and 60 collective aid kits.

🔗 https://tvrmoldova.md/article/d03cc3597807a84a/armata-republicii-moldova-a-fost-dotata-de-nato-cu-un-nou-lot-de-echipamente-medicale-moderne.html

🇲🇩🟩🚔 Moldovan cops have made a total of 150 searches after the arrival of the Moldovan delegation that participated at the announcement of the Pobeda Bloc.

Cops seized 1.1 million USD, 62k rubles and 3070 EURs from the participants, all of whom had a sum of under 10k EURs on their person thus avoiding airport security and the need to declare the money upon entry into Moldova.

🔗 https://protv.md/actualitate/dupa-scandalul-de-pe-aeroport-au-fost-efectuate-circa-150-de-perchezi%C8%9Bii-asupra-sus%C8%9Binatorilor-fugarului-ilan-%C8%99or-care-au-incercat-sa-introduca-in-%C8%9Bara-sume-mari-de-bani-video---2686964.html

🇺🇸📄🇷🇴 The U.S. State Department's yearly report on human rights abuses reveals that Washington D.C.'s biggest criticism regarding Romania.

According to the report, the Romanian authorities are "tolerating too many rapes and cases of domestic violence", a lack of oversight of those that receiving guilty verdicts, noting the high amount of condemned criminals that took refuge outside of the country, notable cases being Sebastian Ghiță, Ionel Arsene, Mario Iorgulescu, Cătălin Cherecheș & others even if some of them have been extradited to serve their sentences.

The report also mentions the lack of transparency noting several cases where journalists and ordinary citizens tried to access information of public interest, but were refused by the government and its subordinate agencies.

The State Department mentions that Romania has "excessive government corruption" with a case study of the Crevedia explosion. The explosion at an LNG station ended up killing 6 people, mostly the employees of the station, injuring 50 others, mostly firefighters. The houses in the immediate vicinity were destroyed.

The investigation following the explosion revealed that the social-democratic mayor of Crevedia was aware of the danger posed by the station and its violations of the safety rules but allowed it to operate because the company owning the station, was owned by another social-democrat, the mayor of Caracal, Ion Doldurea, so a higher-up basically. Doldurea, to cut on the operating costs, hired only Nepalis and Indians to work at the station and by all accounts they were poorly trained. Both mayors are running for re-election despite being accused of gross negligence and are currently awaiting the start of the trial.

Corruption is "rampant" especially in the public health system meanwhile public officials constantly misuse public funds for personal use. The report also attacks the Constitutional Court, criticising its inconsistency regarding the terms of prescription which have led to many criminals to escape justice because their actions became impossible to be tried.

Lastly, the report mentions the case of Emilia Șercan, a journalist who exposed that several PNL members, among whom were former internal affairs minister and current secretary general of the party, Lucian Bode and former prime-minister and retired general, Nicolae Ciucă, have committed plagiarism of their doctoral theses earning them unwarranted benefits. At the time, PNL was very defensive about the accusations and attacked the credentials of the journalist accusing her of "not knowing what she is talking about". Conveniently for both Bode and Ciucă, their theses were either taken off the shelf and locked away far from the eyes of the public or had been "verified" by "an independent board" which established that no plagiarism occurred.

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇴🤝🇦🇪🇶🇦 Prime-minister, Marcel Ciolacu, wants to sell the national airline, TAROM and part of the "Henri Coandă" Otopeni International Airport to Emirati investors.

Last week, Ciolacu went to the United Arab Emirates where he met with a number of Emirati officials. There he invited the oil tycoons to invest in Romania.

TAROM has been at a near constant loss since the fall of communism and despite selling most of its aircraft fleet, reducing its size and operations, the company is still unprofitable and has been placed at the top of national companies to be privatised.

Another offer made by the prime-minister was to allow the Emiratis to build a new terminal at the Otopeni airport and own it.

Another project which Emirati and Qatari businessmen took interest is the Comarnic-Brașov motorway, a motorway planned for over 20 years on the most traveled mountain pass in Romania, the Prahova valley.

Renewable energy, ironically, was a topic of discussion between the Romanian delegation and the Emiratis. Emirati company, Masdar, would be reportedly interested in building floating solar panel fields on lakes and offshore wind farms. Masdar is part of the Mubadala investment fund, a state owned investment fund. Mubadala has bought shares from other Romanian companies, like OMV-Petrom.

🔗 https://www.mediafax.ro/politic/ciolacu-romania-continua-sa-atraga-investitori-din-emiratele-arabe-unite-22345114

🇷🇴🐣⚡️ Romania seems to be leveling off with births only falling by 1.3% in January and February 2024 compared to last year.

Their current TFR is ~1.5, so far above their lowest ever (~1.25 in 2001) but still a large drop from the 1.86 TFR they saw in 2019.

🔗 https://insse.ro/cms/ro/content/mi%C8%99carea-natural%C4%83-popula%C8%9Biei-114

📎 Demographics Now & Then

🇲🇩🧡🇷🇴 Moldovan politician, Renato Ușatâi tells that ”If the Russians reach Nikolaev or Odessa, Moldova will reunite with Romania in under 24 hours” adding that ”this decision has been made long ago and all the necessary acts were taken”.

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇲🇩⚖️🇲🇩 PAS MP, Lilian Carp, says that the governor of Găgăuzia, Eugenia Guțul, could be charged with "separatism" in a new investigation following one of her statements for which she called for the "self-determination of the people in Găgăuzia" if Moldova joins the European Union.

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇪🇪🤝🇲🇩 Estonia is going to spend 40 million EURs equipping the Moldovan Armed Forces.

The acquisition partially funded by the European Union, will see a new radar be added to the list of equipment operated by Moldovan military personnel.

It will be a Czech VERA passive sensor, an electronic support system that uses measurements of time difference of arrival (TDOA) of pulses at three or four sites to accurately detect and track airborne emitters.

The system is generally line-of-sight limited, with a nominal range of 450 km, the normal radio horizon. Detection of targets is within a sector of approximately 120 degrees, although IFF and SSR targets are detected using a dedicated omnidirectional antenna, and hence may be seen over 360 degrees. Up to 200 targets can be automatically tracked simultaneously, with an output rate adjustable from 1 to 5 seconds.

Some other possible acquisition may be some new infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) or radio jamming equipment.

🔗 https://www.defenseromania.ro/scutul-republicii-moldova-construit-cu-bani-de-la-ue-estonia-cumpara-radare-blindate-si-echipament-de-bruiaj-pentru-chisinau_628041.html

🇺🇸📄🇲🇩 The U.S. State Department's yearly report on human rights practices in Moldova made the following observations:

🔸 The Moldovan government took some anticorruption measures but they largely failed to cause any change, noting that corruption remains "endemic" with an emphasis on Moldova's justice system.

🔸 The report assessed that justice is Moldova is "selective" meaning that the law does not apply to everyone equally in the country.

🔸 Moldovan judges have a tendency to "indefinitely postpone hearings for wealthy or well-connected defendants" thus potentially allowing criminals to go free while their actions are prescribed.

🔸 Transparency is limited, the report noting that there are some limitations regarding court cases with the names of defendants and claimants being hid from the public, or the prosecutor and judge involved.

🔸 Sexual harassment goes unprosecuted, noting that victims are discouraged from going to law enforcement allowing abusers to escape without standing trial.

🔸 Antisemitism and "hate speech online and in media against members of the Jewish community remained a problem". Members of the Roma community remain "at higher risk of social exclusion and discrimination" than other people.

You can read the report here

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇴🎬🎥🇷🇺 Romania participate at the 2024 BRICS International Film Festival (formerly, the Moscow International Film Festival) through Father Ciprian Mega and his work: "21 rubies" which aired in Romanian cinemas last year.

The film was selected for finals competing with other 8 films. One such recommendation came from Nikita Mikhalkov a Russian filmmaker, actor, and head of the Russian Cinematographers' Union.

Without going into too much detail, the plot of the film is about a young prosecutor which tries to become the Romanian General Attorney but this depends on the approval of an American state secretary and the European Commission's representative in Romania. Her struggle to convince the two to make her the top prosecutor and the troubled personal life aim to paint the "ugly picture" of the contemporary Romanian society. Obviously, the film is critical of the pro-Western Romanian society which does not stand good with some people and has been censored with no hope of being nominated in a Western film festival.

The release of the film was not without controversy in Romania. Fr. Ciprian Mega (he is a filmmaker and a priest) has a personal dispute with his superior, Bishop Sofronie (Sophronius) of Oradea and Bihor whom he accused of "tolerating homosexuality" within his jurisdiction. Fr. Mega's film was barred from being displayed in cinemas across several locations in the country reportedly after Sophronius exerted pressure on authorities to prevent the film "21 rubies" from being aired in cinemas.

Fr. Mega told journalists that he went to Moscow because the "Russian accepted the film as is" and did not want to censor it even though the film contained some scenes critical of Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Mega's participation at the festival was criticised by the spokesman of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Vasile Bănescu, bishop Sophronius of Oradea and Bihor and lambasted by Romanian journalists who quickly wrote a hit-piece attempting to assassinate his character by claiming a fondness of Russia.

🇷🇴🇵🇱🤝🇰🇷 April 22nd 2024 | Polish government officials and Romanian presidents and government officials arrived in Korea today.

As you may have guessed, three countries gathered here to talk about defense, economy businesses.

It appears that the Romanian here to confirm, inspect the K2 tank, K9 artillery, Nuclear energy business.

They also highly likely talked about other weapons what I mentioned before like, ammunitions, missile systems(M-SAM-II, K239, Redback).

Meanwhile Polish here to talk about additional K2, K2PL tank, K9 artillery, K239 long range rocket artillery and FA-50 contract.

Not only that, Polish officials are here to observe Homar-K(K239) live fire exercise and ADD(Agency for Defense Development) which is Korea's top-tier weapons R&D department.

Moreover, CTM-290(KTSSM) tactical ballistic missile for Homar-K purchase will be done in earnest.

🔗 Mason8718