Bucharest - The US ambassador to Romania cancelled a visit to the Transylvanian city of Cluj yesterday in protest at a planned rally by its ultra-nationalist mayor, warning that a crackdown on minorities could spook investors.
Ambassador Jim Rosapepe attacked Mayor Gheorghe Funar's campaign against a law granting new rights to Romania's ethnic Hungarian minority as "inflammatory rhetoric", which could hurt Bucharest's efforts to join NATO and the European Union.