None of the 14 presidential candidates has done political policing
None of the 14 candidates for the Romanian presidency collaborated with the Secret Police (Securitate) in the sense of political policing. All of them were checked by the National Council for the Study of Security Archives (CNSAS) and it was concluded that only one of the candidates was an employee of the former communist secret police, at the Foreign Intelligence Center, but he did not engage in political policing. The CNSAS announced on Wednesday evening that it had checked the candidates in the presidential race, and nine of them, including the main electoral contenders, did not collaborate with the secret police and were not Securitate’s workers. Four others were born after December 1973 and are too young to have worked with the former communist repressive body. As regards Silviu Predoiu, the former acting director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, the CNSAS notes that he too cannot be considered a secret police worker within the meaning of the law, i.e. as political police, although according to his record, he was employed by the Foreign Intelligence Center between 1987 and 1989.
EPP meeting in Brussels discusses new EU migration and asylum policy
The European People’s Party (EPP) is discussing the new migration and asylum policy in the European Union in Brussels on Thursday. A possible new distribution of migrants in the Member States, including Romania, will be analyzed, Romanian Senate President Nicolae Ciucă said. He attended the EPP meeting in Brussels as president of the National Liberal Party (PNL). „The decision is not yet taken. Romania is sticking to the number of migrants that it committed to three or four years ago, if I remember correctly. We will have a meeting at the level of the European People’s Party with all the leaders of the political parties that are part of this family and, after the debate there, we will enter the process of analysis and decision”, said Nicolae Ciucă. In Brussels, the PNL leader will meet EPP President Manfred Weber, European Commissioner-designate for Defense and Space, Andrius Kubilius and the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola.
The new edition of the Start-Up Nation program was presented to young Romanians in Italy
The new edition of the Start-Up Nation program, launched by the Romanian Ministry of Economy, was also presented to young Romanians in Italy. At the event organized yesterday at the Romanian Embassy in Rome, Iulia Schnecker, counselor of the Office for Commercial and Economic Promotion, explained to the participants that the Romanian state wants to convince young Romanians abroad to invest in our country. In fact, one of the young women present at the meeting, fashion designer Elena Munșuc, says that she finds the Start-Up Nation program extremely useful. „I would like to invest in Romania and in the Republic of Moldova, to open a factory or to act as a trainer for people who want to open a fashion business. My longing for my country has been permanent, but I believe that the time has come to put my skills at the service of the development of the countries I left, because I did my studies in the Republic of Moldova and this brought me results and thanks to my Romanian citizenship I managed to open a business in Italy and I believe that the time has come for me to give something back”, Elena Munșuc said.
Magda Baciu