On January 1, Romania took over the rotating presidency of the European Union from Austria. The social democratic PSD-ALDE government led by PrimeMinister Viorica Dăncilă, in cooperation with President Klaus Iohannis from the liberal PNL, will take on important European dossiers like migration and the multi-annual EU budget. Romania will also have to facilitate Brexit on March 29.
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Last week, political leaders descended on Bucharest, Romania for the third Three Seas Initiative Summit. Launched in 2015, the Three Seas Initiative is an economic alliance of twelve EU member states between the Adriatic, Baltic, and Black seas. These countries – Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia – are strategically located, especially when it comes to energy and security.
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An unprecedented violent crackdown by riot police against anti-government protesters in Romania’s capital left many wounded and further escalated the ongoing standoff between the ruling PSD party and the liberal opposition, including President Klaus Iohannis.
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After months of mounting pressure from the government, Romania’s president confirmed his dismissal of the country’s top anti-corruption prosecutoron July 9. Laura Codruța Kövesi was the chief prosecutor of Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), a position she held from May 2013 until the time of her sacking.
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After the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, newly elected parliaments adopted legislation to dispose of the former communist elites. Through so-called “lustration” laws (“purification” in Latin) countries addressed the legacy of human rights abuses by identifying and, in some cases, sentencing those responsible for abuses under the prior regime. Lustration, however, was only one of the ways that secret police files could be used.
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Last Friday, April 13, Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis approved a request to prosecutea former president and prime minister on charges of crimes against humanity for their roles in the country’s bloody 1989 revolt against its communist dictatorship.
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