PM Netanyahu Meets with Romanian PM Ludovic Orban Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Tuesday, 3 November 2020), in Jerusalem, met with Romanian Prime Minister Ludovic Orban. Following are Prime Minister Netanyahu's remarks at the start of their meeting: "Prime Minister Orban, welcome to Jerusalem, to you and your delegation. It’s a sign of our great friendship that in the first year of your premiership you chose to come to Israel, and chose to come to Israel during this time of corona. So you’re very, very welcome here. A few moments ago I spoke to our colleague Sebastian Kurz in Austria. I told him that the people of Israel stand with Austria, as I know the people of Romania do and so many others, against the savagery of Islamist terrorism. We are cooperating every way, with our intelligence and every other way that we can. The same is true of corona. I spoke yesterday to my friend Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece to see how we can cooperate on corona, and just recently, two hours ago, with our colleague Andrej Babiš of the Czech Republic to see again how we can cooperate and help each other in this. This is something that happens as a matter of course with Romania. Our friendship has been very very powerful between the people of Israel and the people of Romania. We have hundreds of thousands of Romanians who came to Israel and they’re a human bridge the familiarize Israelis with Romanian culture and familiarize Romanians with Israeli culture. It’s a living bridge that is a foundation for our common friendship that is growing. We are committed to not only to our common past, but to a future. And the future belongs to those who innovate. Innovation is the key to assuring the prosperity, safety and health of our people in the future. And in this, Israel and Romania are cooperating in many many fields: in cyber security, and water management, and agriculture, and health, and space and many many other areas. But the most important thing is that our business sectors, our business people, our entrepreneurs, men and women who have innovation on their minds, let them cooperate. And for this purpose we’re going to sign today a treaty on avoiding double taxation, which from my experience has always enhanced trade and investments in a very rapid way. So I think this is very good news for Romania and for Israel. Additionally, I want to thank you, Prime Minister and Romania over the years for helping us present a sensible case to the EU. We’re in a period of peace. We are making peace. We made peace and normalization agreements with three Arab countries in six weeks. So obviously they have a different view of the situation here in the Middle East than some of the traditional bureaucracies of the EU. I think we will continue to value your assistance in explaining to the EU the changing circumstances in the Middle East that are advancing peace and prosperity for all. You’re a great friend. Romania is a friend; you personally are a friend. So I want to say welcome, friend, to Jerusalem. Welcome." Source: Prime Minister's Office