The Diplomat Bucharest

Basescu puts minority rights in spotlight

     Romanian’s minority in Ukraine enjoying the same rights as the Ukrainians in Romania is a move supported by Presidents Basescu and Yushchenko, on the former’s visit to his neighbour.
     But there is still a lack of schooling and university teaching compared to the situation of minorities such as Hungarians in Romania, some of which is due to a lack of demand.
     Around 420,000 Romanian first-language speakers live in Ukraine, according to the Romanian Consulate in Cernauti north of Bucovina, at the last census of 2001.
     Romeo Sandulescu, Consul of Romania to Cernauti, says this could now be up to 600,000.
     Cernauti has a population of around 236,000. Over 10,000 declared themselves Romanians and almost 4,000 Moldovan. Yet in Cernauti there are only four schools teaching in Romanian, with 640 pupils.
     In the ‘Yuryi Fedkovich’ National University in Cernauti, there is a department of Romanian and classical philology and also groups teaching in Romanian at the Faculty of Mathematics.
     “It has been vividly discussed whether to open departments with teaching in Romanian, but the Ukrainian counterpart claimed so far that there hadn’t been requests,” he says. For this reason, the perspective of opening a university with teaching in Romanian at Cernauti is “fairly improbable,” adds Sandulescu.
     “There is still a lack of books or press in Romanian to be widely available,” says Adrian Savoiu, a teacher of Romanian in Bucharest, who has researched the issue of Romanians’ cultural status in Ukraine.      “Of course, new regulations are in place to even out the Romanian minority’s rights there, but they are not always upheld.”
     Following Basescu’s visit, a counsellor on Romanian minority issues in Ukraine will be appointed to the Cernauti Consulate.

Outsourced CIA torture camps a myth, Ministry tells Europe

     Allegations that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ran secret terror suspect prisons in Romania were denied in a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last month.
     In a letter to the Council of Europe, the ministry refuted claims and rejected notions that Romanian officials had been involved in activities that curtail human freedom.
     In January, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly investigator into the issue of potential CIA detention bases, Dick Marty, said: “It has been proved, and in fact never denied, that individuals have been abducted, deprived of their liberty and transported… in Europe, to be handed over to countries in which they have suffered… torture.”
     But he had no “formal or irrefutable” evidence at that time of the existence of secret CIA detention centres in the Romania, Poland or any other country.
     The Romanian Ministry added that the country was open to more investigations by international groups on the issue.
     Allegations that the CIA had established secret detention centres in eastern Europe surfaced last November by the Washington Post.

US marine evades prison after car crash killing local celebrity

     Marine Christopher VanGoethem was found not guilty of adultery and negligent homicide of Romanian rock musician Teofil Peter, by a court martial board in Quantico, Virginia, in a decision that shocked many Romanians.
     On 4 December 2004 in Bucharest, Marine Staff Sergeant VanGoethem’s car hit the side of a taxi carrying 50- year-old Peter, bassist for rock band Compact, who suffered major head injuries and died at the scene.
     Before the incident the marine had allegedly been out drinking alcohol in bars.
     The seven-member jury, made up of four non-commissioned officers and three majors, found 32 year-old VanGoethem guilty of obstruction of justice and making false statements.
     The marine has received only a letter of reprimand, a punishment whose leniency has surprised some US and Romanian officials.
Prime Minister of Romania Calin Popescu-Tariceanu said the decision in Virginia was “bizarre”, adding the Romanian state would financially support the family of Teo Peter in taking VanGoethem to a civil court in the US, an offer they are understood to be considering.
     This is in opposition to the official view from the US Embassy in Bucharest.
     “The trial was carried out, as far as I am aware, according to the relevant US military laws,” said Ambassador Nicholas Taubman.
     However many witnesses, such as the driver of the taxi carrying Teo Peter, did not travel to America to take the stand in Virginia. There were also no witnesses who said they had seen Teo Peter at the site of the incident.

EU fraud scrutiny doubles but convictions are still lacking

     The Government department for fighting EU fraud anticipates its number of investigations will double this year, but so far only one conviction has been made.
     In 2004, 14 investigations were completed, in 2005 43 and in 2006, Tudor Chiuariu, Secretary of state Head of Fight Against Fraud Department (DLAF) expects that this will more than double to 100.
     This intends to combat the notion that the Government is not serious about investigating fraud, especially as last year the European Commission singled out corruption as the main stumbling block to Romania’s assurance of EU entry in 2007. So far, however, there has only been one conviction. EU funds that were available last year were in the region of one billion Euro. Around 600 million Euro was absorbed.
     “This is not very low and not very high,” said Chiuariu, speaking recently at a British-Romanian Chamber of Commerce event.
     An estimated six million Euro (or one per cent) of this was defrauded or unwisely spent. “Some people read the forms wrong,” he said, “some are defrauded, others want to steal money.”
     DLAF, which begun operations last year, has the right to undertake on-the-spot checks and has unconditional access to premises of potential EU fraudsters.
     Penalties can include up to 20 years imprisonment.

News briefs

Rejected anti-corruption bill returns to Parliament
Romania’s Senate rejected legislation entitling the country’s anti-corruption prosecutor to probe senior politicians and judges, a move which caused concern in the European Commission. Romania’s Minister of Justice Monica Macovei referred to this decision as a ‘catastrophe’. At press time, President Basescu had sent the bill back to Parliament for a second reading.

Francophone University proposed for capital
The first Francophone University in Europe, outside of the nations who have French as an official language, could be founded in Romania. This institution will be proposed at the International Summit of the Francophony hosted by Romania this September. A graduate school for individuals studying doctorates and undergoing research, this is aimed at consolidating the study of French in Romania.

Ungureanu supports Moldovan EU Accession
Republic of Moldova can cope with the requirements for its EU membership and Romania will help, Foreign Minister Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu said on a visit to Chisinau, Press Obozrenie reported. “Moldova should be given the same chance for EU integration as the western Balkans and I’m sure that Chisinau won’t miss that chance,” he said.

Journalist arrested in security leak
Authorities investigating the leak of secret military documents, including details on coalition troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, have arrested Marian Garleanu, a journalist working for Romania Libera. Garleanu, who denied any wrongdoing, said he was targeted because he repeatedly exposed corruption in the Ministry of Defence, quoted by Rompres.

Former Prime Minister in bribe controversy
National Anti-Corruption Department (DNA) has begun criminal investigation into former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase for bribe-taking and accepting favours. Nastase has denied any wrongdoing. “This has all the markings of a public execution,” he said.

Pigeon casualty of bird flu
Laboratory tests confirmed the presence of the fatal H5N1 bird flu virus in a dead pigeon in the Mereni – Topraisar area, Constanta county, the Ministry of Agriculture announced, sparking fears that birds migrating to the Danube Delta this spring could be carrying the virus. Bird flu has been detected in more than 30 villages across the country since the virus was first found in the Danube Delta last October. Romania has not reported any human casualties.

Green belt for capital by 2009
Minister of Agriculture Gheorghe Flutur last month announced a new project to plant more forests around Bucharest this Spring. The ‘Bucharest Green Belt’ projects will stretch over 6,000 hectares of the capital’s outskirts, doubling the amount of trees in two to three years.

Energy mogul quits political function
Rompetrol’s CEO Dinu Patriciu last month resigned as president of the
Prahova branch of the National Liberal Party (PNL). Citing the ongoing questioning of his company’s asset management by the public prosecutors office as a reason, he declared these accusations had been “hallucinated”.

Treaty ratification speeds up
Germany is likely to ratify Romania and Bulgaria’s Accession Treaty to the EU either in July or in September, says German Bundestag vice president Susanne Kastner. The UK and the Netherlands were the latest European nations to ratify, while EU president Austria has promised it will happen this semester. This is added to Malta, Latvia, Italy, Spain, Greece, Hungary, Estonia, Slovenia, Cyprus and the Czech and Slovak Republics.

Football transfer fees investigated
Romania’s fiscal authorities have begun to investigate an allegedly illegal transfer of a Romanian soccer player abroad, according to Reuters. Earlier last month, the Romanian Football Federation (FRF) launched its own investigation into the 2003 transfer of Florin Bratu from Rapid Bucharest to Galatasaray after local media said that two million USD of the 2.75 million USD fee was unaccounted for.