Moldova

Russian billionaire Andrey Goncharenko, owner of a Gazprom subsidiary, on Tuesday, said he had given up his shares in Avia Invest, the company that has run Chisinau International Airport under a concession since 2013.

For years, the airport has been at the centre of controversies over its ownership and the legality of the concession awarded for the next 50 years.

Bulgaria's government has approved the conclusion of grant agreements for the implementation of Official Development Assistance (ODA) projects in seven countries: the Republic of Serbia, the Republic of Northern Macedonia, Kosovo, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, the Republic of Armenia and Vietnam, said the press office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Approximately 70 million citizens passed through the Romanian border checkpoints in 2019, the General Border Police Inspectorate (IGPF) writes in its 2019 activity report. "Traffic at the border crossing points were about 69.8 million people crossings (56.8 million EU citizens and 13 million non-EU citizens) and 17.8 million means of transport," reads the report.

A government minister in Moldova has admitted security concerns about the country's currently frozen "golden visa" programme, but added that the bonuses need to be taken into account.

Economy Minister Anatol Usatii told a political TV show called 'Black Box' on Thursday that most of the 30 applications had come from Syria, Pakistan and India.

Economic and political analysts in Moldova have criticised an initiative by President Igor Dodon and the government led by Ion Chicu to shift 50 per cent of the National Bank of Moldova's annual profits into the state budget, describing it as a populist move that will not benefit ordinary people in the country.

According to its statements, the Chicu government had several key objectives. They were ensuring energy security, promoting social projects and, as the new Prime Minister declared right after his appointment, carrying out the same justice reform that was the real reason for the former government's fall.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Bogdan Aurescu on Monday had a meeting in Vienna with the Secretary General of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Thomas Greminger, in which context he pleaded for an increased presence of the Romanian experts in leadership positions at the OSCE, informs a release sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) to AGERPRES.

Bucharest, Feb 9 /Agerpres/ - The number of arrivals of foreign visitors registered at the control points on Romania's borders was in 2019 over 12.815 million, an increase of 9.3 pct over the number recorded in 2018, of which 6.254 million (48.8 of the total) arrivals of foreign visitors from European Union countries (plus 8.4 pct), according to data centralized by the National Institute for St

The General Prosecutor of Moldova, Alexandr Stoianoglu, on Wednesday said charges against the former head of the intelligence service, SIS, Vasile Botnari, had been sent to court for the involuntary deportation in 2018 of seven Turkish teachers to Turkey, where they were jailed for alleged links to exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Manager of the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant (MNTR) Virgil-Stefan Nitulescu said on Tuesday that 30 years after the reopening of the museum on February 5, 1990, a new beginning awaits its team, currently working on reopening MNTR's permanent exhibition. "February 5, 1990 represents to us the moment of a new beginning.