A strike by thousands of Romanian miners was suspended following talks between union leaders and representatives of the Economy Ministry on Thursday. Economy minister Varujan Vosganian said as talks ended today that the main claim of the miners’ union - a say on Romania’s draft energy strategy - will be debated before June 10.

For his part, Marin Condescu, a top representative of miners from Oltenia region in south Romania, announced that all protest action is suspended until June 30. This comes as Teodor Atanasiu, head of the Romanian Agency for State Assets Recovery, said on Wednesday that an understanding was hard to find because “miners don’t know what they’ve gone on strike for”.

On Wednesday, Vosganian urged miners to return to work after agreeing with a salary boost of 15-17% and promising that the privatization of energy complexes would not begin before the energy strategy of Romania, now in the phase of public debates, is finalized.

Some 15,000 miners from the energy complexes of Rovinari and Turceni went on strike Wednesday morning, protesting against the transfer of authority over the two complexes to the Authority for State Assets Recovery, the main body dealing with the privatization of Romanian enterprises.