Protests – On Friday, the Romanian farmers are organizing protests in several counties and in Bucharest, dissatisfied with the solution found by the European Commission to the problems and serious imbalances facing the Romanian agri-food sector, against the background of market distortions caused by the armed conflict in Ukraine. According to the farmers, the total elimination, since the middle of last year, of customs duties on all goods from Ukraine has exported the effects of the war, commercially speaking, to the neighboring countries, creating an involuntary dumping effect, as it has stimulated Ukrainian farmers to sell cheaper. The representatives of the Romanian farmers point out that this measure has not helped and will not help the Ukrainians to resume their production cycle. Instead, it has strongly disrupted the market in Romania.
Beijing – The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the French President Emmanuel Macron are discussing today, in Beijing, with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, especially about China’s role in finding a peace solution in Ukraine. The two are trying to convince the Chinese leader to exert his influence on Russia to end the war. Shortly after arriving in Beijing, Emmanuel Macron expressed concern about growing tensions between China and the West, and Ursula von der Leyen adopted a tougher stance, warning that the future relations between China and the EU will be influenced by how Beijing will approach the war in Ukraine. For the moment, Western allies only see an ever-closer economic rapprochement between China and Russia. The issue was on the agenda of the meeting of the NATO foreign ministers on Wednesday, who expressed concern about the Chinese-Russian partnership, which threatens Ukraine. In response, NATO decided to close ranks with its partners in the South Pacific. The NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg announced that the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are also invited to the summer summit of the Alliance in Vilnius, in which the Ukrainian president will also participate.
NATO – On Friday, the NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană will visit the South-East Multinational Brigade from Craiova (southern Romania), whose Command has the mission to ensure the command and control of a NATO operation of the Article 5 type – Collective Defense, contributing, in this way, to the consolidation of the South-Eastern flank of the Alliance, to the security of the territory and the population of the member states. The NATO official made this announcement in an interview given to AGERPRES news agency, in Brussels, after the conclusion of the meeting of foreign ministers from the allied states, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday. Mircea Geoana spoke in the interview about the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance and the relationship with the partner countries, as well as about the agenda of his mandate as NATO Deputy Secretary General, which was extended until October 2024. Mircea Geoana also referred to the war in Ukraine. In his opinion, the Kremlin leadership has been using the nuclear rhetoric in the most unprofessional and irresponsible way, even before the start of the war in Ukraine.
