Romania "role model" on democracy

Romania may be a role model for democracy and freedom in the Arab countries where the popular movements took place this year, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday during a press conference held at the Victoria Palace.

Israel's Prime Minister highlighted that he discussed with Prime Minister Emil Boc the situation of the Middle East that has emerged from these movements, as well as the peace process and the ability to maintain the long-term peace.

"It is important that democracy is established and we believe that it is important that Romania is asked too. We all hope that this Arab spring to head toward democracy and in Romania I know that you have enough problems, but success and freedom did not come without a price."

"A higher life standard can not come without freedom and the peoples from the Middle East watched how you envolved and I believe that you can be a role-model for the relationships we have in the Middle East for a dignified way forward," the Israeli official said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that "Israel likes Romania" and that our country is respected and appreciated among Israeli citizens, mainly due to the "human bridge" created by Jews born in Romania who emigrated to this country.

"They too are very popular, they are successful people in the business, in the healthcare system, politics," the Israeli official said, adding that the potential between the two countries should be exploited through a strengthening of bilateral cooperation in several areas.

Israel interested in cooperating with Romania in agriculture

Israel is interested in developing a stronger cooperation with Romania in agriculture and food industry, as a greater presence of Romanian products on the Israeli market might lead to lower prices, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Victoria Palace said .

Prime Minister Netanyahu offered the cottage cheese as an example, stressing that he specifically discussed this with Prime Minister Emil Boc.

"Romania has always been by Israel's side and we have a unique relationship that we need to expand on specific areas. We discussed some of them, security, water, agriculture and we will resume them in November at an intergovernmental meeting in Jerusalem."

"But we also talked about the cottage cheese. You may ask why we talked about the cottage cheese. Israel has now many difficulties, challenges such as Iran, Hesbollah, but who visited Israel in the last two weeks, noticed that the public attention was focused on the cottage cheese, on its price," the Israeli Prime Minister said.

He pointed that there was not enough competition in the Israeli dairy market, and Romania can take advantage of this opportunity because of its agricultural potential.

Intergovernmental meeting at Jerusalem in November

Representatives of Romania and Israel will have an intergovernmental meeting in Jerusalem in November, as Emil Boc and his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu establsihed on Wednesday.

According to the Romanian Prime Minister, priority areas of cooperation between Romania and Israel will be agriculture, energy, infrastructure, defense and tourism.

"We decided to have a roadmap of our bilateral relations, we agreed to have an intergovernmental meetingin November to materialize our development projects and we established some important key areas of cooperation and I would refer briefly to agriculture, energy, infrastructure, but in what concerns the cooperation in defense, I can say that we have an excellent collaboration, but also in areas such as tourism, health or the environment," Emil Boc said.

It will also be discussed the possibility of supplementing the number of scholarships for Israeli students that want to study in Romania and for the young Romanian people who want to study in universities from Israel.

Translated by: Iulia Florescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University