Meeting here on Tuesday, Bulgaria's National Assembly Defence Committee voted, 10-0 with 3 abstentions, to support a Government-proposed bill to ratify a Memorandum of Understanding between Bulgaria's Ministry of Defence and Romania's Ministry of National Defence regarding the setting up of a Regional Special Operations Component Command Headquarters (HQR-SOCC). According to https://www.bta.bg/, the two countries signed the Memorandum during the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., on July 10, 2024. "The Regional Headquarters can go into operation as early as the beginning of 2025," caretaker Defence Minister Atanas Zapryanov said then. The initiative is part of the evolution of NATO's command and control system and will rotate between the two countries once every two years. Zapryanov said that this joint command is very important for both peacetime and wartime.Under the Memorandum, the headquarters will be a temporary deployable command element and will be activated according to the two countries' national procedures and in accordance with the established mechanisms of the Alliance for participation in Allied operations or upon activation of NATO's defence plans, as well as for participation in bilateral and multilateral exercises and training events, the reasons to the bill says. After the HQR-SOCC reaches Full Operational Capability, each of the countries will act as a Lead Nation, hosting the command for one year (or up to two years, if necessitated by circumstances) until rotation to the new Lead Nation which reaches Full Operational Capability. Romania will be the first to assume the command of HQR-SOCC. The Regional Special Operations Component Command Headquarters will be capable of commanding and controlling multinational special operations forces (SOF) and NATO operations support and conduct forces, the cited source says.
Romanian prime minister Ilie Bolojan stated during an interview on Wednesday, December 17, that there should be no statute of limitations in cases of serious corruption. The statement comes after a Recorder investigation, which showed that several heads of the major institutions in the Romanian justice system allegedly delayed trials for years until wrongdoings were […]
President Nicușor Dan has challenged, before the Constitutional Court (CCR), the constitutionality of the law that requires that at least 40% of the athletes who play on a team in official national competitions be Romanian. Dan noted that the law violates the principle of non-discrimination and the free movement of workers, enshrined both in the […]
Craiova International Airport will open its new passenger terminal on Thursday, December 18, completing a major infrastructure investment aimed at significantly expanding capacity and improving air connectivity in southwestern Romania. It is part of a broader expansion and modernization project financed through the Large Infrastructure Operational Programme (POIM) 2014–2020, with a total value exceeding EUR […]
Romania is set to be connected to the Western European energy network thanks to grid investments worth EUR 30 billion. The funds will be provided by the EU by 2035, and the project will link Romania to Hungary and Austria in a joint project. Romanian energy minister Bogdan Ivan signaled the signing of the new […]
Franck Bagouet has been appointed managing director of TotalEnergies Marketing Romania SA and managing director of Automotive Southeast Europe Hub TotalEnergies Marketing. He succeeds Didier Grimault, who has accepted a new position within the TotalEnergies company. “I am glad to join this dynamic affiliate and confident that, together with our talented team, we will reinforce […]
Databricks, the data analytics and artificial intelligence company co-founded by Romanian professors Ion Stoica and Matei Zaharia, announced on Tuesday, December 16, that it is raising USD 4 billion in funding at a valuation of USD 134 billion, according to CNBC. The new valuation represents a 34% increase compared to the August round, when Databricks […]
