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The re-election of Horst Köhler as German President on 24 May, has been hailed as proud moment by the Romanian and Moldavian media. Cotidianul reports that the triumph of the Christian-Democrat, who defeated Social-Democrat rival Gesine Schwan, would give his party “a major boost in the run-up to legislative elections set to take place this year.”
But party politics play only a small part in the enthusiasm expressed by the Bucharest daily. The report’s main focus was on the Romanian and Moldavian background of the 66-year-old ex-director of the International Monetary Fund, whose mother came from Brasov, a town in central Romania. Koehler himself was born in what is now the Republic of Moldova, in a region that used to known as Bessarabia. According to Cotidianul, “His family lived in Moldavia until the end of WWII.” “The German from Bessarabia,” as he is dubbed by the Romanian daily, recently referred to the topic of his background when he spoke to an audience of Moldavian students: “I am a Moldavian German from Bessarabia. In 1939, when Hitler and Stalin divided up Europe, my ancestors had to choose Russian citizenship or return to their country of origin. My parents opted to leave Moldavia, but I am still very attached to this country."
A conversation with investigative reporters Stefano Valentino and Giorgio Michalopoulos, who have dissected the dark underbelly of green finance for Voxeurop and won several awards for their work.
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