Radio România Internațional

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  • The new fiscal law package at a first reading

    The new fiscal law package at a first reading

    The PSD-PNL government coalition in Bucharest on
    Wednesday night held its first talks over the new series of measures aimed at
    attaining a long-term balanced state budget and easing the EU-fund absorption. The
    country’s Finance Minister, Marcel Boloş, recalls that Romania has pledged to clear
    the 4.4% budget deficit target. And if it fails to achieve that, it runs the
    risk of seeing major EU fund cuts from the European Commission, funds, which
    are crucial in the process of streamlining the country’s infrastructure,
    including motorways, hospitals and schools.




    Marcel Boloş: We have 46
    billion euros in the cohesion policy and another 29.3 in the National Plan of
    Recovery and Resilience. So we are talking Romania’s future here, 75 billion euros,
    which we cannot afford being suspended.




    Besides cutting on public expenses, the Executive also
    wants to fight tax evasion, to improve income taxation and cut fiscal
    privileges. In an attempt to reduce the anxiety caused by the upcoming higher taxes
    and prices, the same Finance Minister says that prices will indeed be raised while
    banks and small enterprises will be paying higher taxes, but the VAT will rise only
    for some categories of goods and services




    Marcel Boloş: Food
    stuff will stay around 9%, and so will medicine, but medical prostheses for
    disabled people will remain at 0% VAT. At the same time we are going to have 5%
    for firewood, thermal energy, gas, everything that means household consumption.




    Before the government session, the new
    fiscal-budgetary measures had been tackled by the Three-party Social Dialogue
    Council, a body made up of representatives of the government, employers’
    associations and trade unions.




    According to their president Florin Jianu, The
    Employers’ Associations seem to be contented with the decision as they got the
    promise the measures will be applied as of January 1st 2024 and the
    VAT in the hospitality industry will remain unchanged.




    Florin Jianu: The
    hospitality industry will have a 9% VAT, a very good thing for this sector. Had
    the VAT been raised in this sector we would have completely lost
    competitiveness against our Bulgarian neighbors.




    Trade unions, however, are dissatisfied with the
    decision that holiday vouchers be given only to state employees with salaries
    up to 16 hundred euros. In response Social-Democratic Prime Minister Marcel
    Ciolacu said:




    Marcel Ciolacu With a state salary of 8.000 lei, one cannot apply for
    holiday vouchers, neither for food allowances. Employees with low salaries will
    continue to get vouchers, even at a higher value, but it’s totally unfair to
    give them to the employees with high salaries.




    Prime Minister Ciolacu is to present next week in
    Parliament the aforementioned package of fiscal-budgetary measures for which
    its Executive will assume responsibility.


    The new measures, which have attracted a lot of heat
    from the opposition, have been described by the country’s president, Klaus
    Iohannis, as a step in the right direction.




    (bill)

  • May 25, 2023 UPDATE

    May 25, 2023 UPDATE

    Strike — The strike in the education system in Romania continues, after the unions rejected the latest offer made by the government, which they consider offensive. The teachers were to receive 2,500 lei this year, in two installments, and the non-teaching staff 1,000 lei. The money would have been granted on a “professional career card”. The trade unions are asking for a rise in incomes of 25% and a law under which the salary of a beginner teacher should be the equivalent of the average gross salary. A new round of negotiations took place on Thursday in Bucharest. Employees in the pre-university education system started an all-out strike on May 22, dissatisfied with the level of salaries and working conditions. The union leaders have stated that they will not give up the protest until their demands are resolved.



    Deficit – The European Commission Executive Vice-President, Valdis Dombrovskis on Wednesday called on the member states to more effectively apply their plans of recovery and resilience, to make investments and cut on spending. The European Commission has again drawn attention to the economic situation in Romania, the only EU country for which the excessive deficit procedure has been activated. According to Brussels, Romania spends more money than it has and must cut its deficit under 3% by the next year. According to the Romanian government, the budget deficit is expected to go down under 4.4% of the GDP this year and 2.9% next year.



    Visit — Currently, “a real war is going on in Europe” said, on Thursday, in Sibiu (center), the president of the Federal Republic of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who reiterated the call for unity in this context. ‘Since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, we have considerably strengthened NATOs Eastern Flank and have considerably expanded our cooperation in the field of security policy. Both within the European Union and within NATO, our countries collaborate closely, based on trust’, the German official emphasized. Romania’s President, Klaus Iohannis, stated, in turn, that the Romanian-German friendship, with an old tradition, has now reached an unprecedented point of development. The two met with the representatives of the German community in Romania and visited the “Samuel von Brukenthal” National College, with tuition in German, a school attested in documents almost 650 years ago. The German president is on a state visit to Romania until Friday.



    Football – Sepsi OSK Sfantu Gheorghe won Romanias football cup after a 5-4 win against Universitatea Cluj in the shootouts on Wednesday evening. 120 minutes into the game, the score was nil-all. The hero of Sepsi was its goalkeeper, Roland Niczuly, a former player of Universitatea Cluj. Niczuly managed to save three shots, after Universitatea had got the upper hand but wasted two chances. Sepsi has won the trophy for the second time in a row. We recall that this ambitious football side from central Romania, lost the finals of the aforementioned competition in 2020. Universitatea Cluj was left with the trophy they won in 1965, losing the Romanian Cup finals for the fifth time.



    Moldova – Less than 0.5% of the citizens of the Republic of Moldova who spent their holiday abroad last year chose the Commonwealth of Independent States – CIS as their destination – reveals a study published in Chişinău. The research appeared in the context in which the Moldovan government made the decision to withdraw from the CIS, given the fact that one of its founding members, Russia, attacked another founding member, Ukraine. 40% of the citizens of the Republic of Moldova would, however, like the country to remain in the CIS, and Moscow claims that, by leaving the organization, the Republic of Moldova risks losing economic advantages. Official statistics show, however, that the commercial relations of the Republic of Moldova are currently mainly oriented towards the European Union. The Republic of Moldova wants to join the European Union “as soon as possible” in order to protect itself from the Russian threat and hopes for a decision “in the next few months” regarding the opening of negotiations, President Maia Sandu had previously said.



    Banks – The banks in Romania will have to issue new repayment schedules, where the amount of the principal on the loan will be paid by consumers in equal installments over the entire loan term, said the general director of the National Authority for Consumer Protection, Paul Anghel. Also, the president of the institution, Horia Constantinescu, pointed out that he had already signed the orders to stop these deceptive practices for 11 banks that were previously fined because the installments was mainly composed of interests in the first years of repayment. The Authority for Consumer Protection announced on Thursday that eight other banks were sanctioned for the way in which they calculate loan rates. Moreover, the Authority notified the Competition Council over what it called the cartel attitude of some banking institutions. However, the Romanian Association of Banks contradicted the Authority and showed that this calculation method was included in the Romanian legislation since the setting-up of regulations on lending activity. (LS)

  • Southern Romania’s tourist assets

    Southern Romania’s tourist assets

    We’re
    heading, today, to southern Romania’s Ialomita County, in the region of
    Wallachia. Here we can find one of Romania’s one-of-a-kind museums: the National
    Museum of Agriculture. Also, we’re about to find out more on the maestro Ionel
    Perlea. Born in Ialomita County, the Romanian musician conducted a great number
    of opera shows worldwide. Ionel Perlea was also the conductor of famed symphony
    orchestras around the world, especially in the United States of America. In
    villages across Ialomita County, we’re sure to discover unique traditions and customs,
    such as the horse-shoeing of eggs or the fretwork for the eaves decoration. Our
    guide today is the manager of the Ionel Perlea Cultural Centre
    and the local correspondent of Radio Romania’s News and Current Affairs Channel,
    Clementina Tudor.     Clementina told us that the whole county Ialomita
    river flows through the entire county, form the east to the west. Almost all assets
    somehow lie in the vicinity of the river that gave the name of the county. Our
    journey begins with the Slobozia municipal city.


    Clementina Tudor:

    In Slobozia, we have something unique at national level, the National
    Museum of Agriculture, which was established by the late museographer Răzvan
    Ciucă and which brings together a tremendous legacy of the Romanian people. It
    is the Romanian peasant’s cultural legacy, equally traditional and ancestral,
    irrespective of the region they were born and grew up in. Also nearby Slobozia municipal
    city, we have the resort of Amara, famous before 1989. Amara balneal spa was
    and still is a noted landmark in the Ialomita County’s tourism and we ‘re happy
    that, after such a downfall the whole country had been going through, the resort
    of Amara still lives up to its former status, nay, he resort is thriving. A
    great many tourists opt for coming over to follow a treatment scheme, but also
    to relax in the resort of Amara. Apart from the wonderful lake, apart from the natural
    mud baths, they can relax taking a stroll around a park with hundreds of nut
    trees, which was refurbished a couple of years ago, with European funding.
    Actually, investments have been made in the region, some of them public, others
    private, and in Amara we also have a SPA complex, which is also open during
    winter.


    We’re now heading towards the county’s rural area. All villages
    have retained something of the Baragan Plainfield tradition. However, in Ialomita
    County there are several villages where the peasant house’s traditional architecture
    has been preserved to this day. With details on that, here
    is the manager of the Ionel Perlea Cultural Centre and the local correspondent of
    Radio Romania’s News and Current Affairs Channel, Clementina Tudor.




    Specifically, I’m speaking about the
    Jilavele commune, in the west, where there also is an authentic peasant house,
    yet such a house can also be found in the Centre of the county, in Grindu,
    Grindasi. In any of Ialomita County’s localities we can see something of the ancestors’
    cultural heritage. Actually, we, employed by the Cultural Centre, we have
    edited al album of the florist’s in Baragan, and the florist’s in Baragan are
    those samples of fretwork that adorned our grandparents’ porched galleries.
    They can still be seen and admired. I am very happy there are still heirs who
    understood to preserve that kind of specificity and not all of them modernize
    the houses they inherited from their grandparents. In Jilavele, we have Mr. Simion,
    who horse-shoes Easter eggs in the most beautiful possible way. And, at the
    farther end of the county, in the village of Luciu, which is part of the Gura
    Ialomitei commune, we have a lady, Mrs. Ana Banu, who does intricate stitch patterns,
    but who also manufactures peasant’s coarse leather footwear, opinci, in
    Romanian. We do not have that many traditional craftsmen, but they are somehow personalized.
    Not to mentioned the fact that all women on the Ialomita villages can knit all
    sorts of things and weaving is still performed, on the traditional loom. We also
    have blacksmiths that can be seen at work. For
    instance, Mister Toma, the blacksmith in the commune of Traian, is very happy welcoming
    his guests. He works round the clock even before the Epiphany Day, a traditional
    feast held in high esteem in Ialomita and in Baragan, when clients cue up at
    his gates, who shoe their horses before Epiphany Day.


    There are a great many events taking place in Ialomita
    County, and their timeline can begin even with the Epiphany Day, says the
    manager of the Ionel Perlea Cultural Centre and the local correspondent of Radio
    Romania’s News and Current Affairs Channel, Clementina Tudor. The Epiphany Day,
    actually, is a feast held in high esteem in all the villages of Ialomita
    County. All householders take out their horses and wagons, adorn them and, with
    them, they go to church. Then they have speed or endurance carriage-driving competitions
    in the plainfield. There is no local community where such competition is not
    held. In the end, since the Epiphany Day is observed on January the sixth, when
    temperature readings are very low, everything ends with a glass of mulled plum
    brandy or mulled wine and a great party.


    Clementina Tudor:


    For 30 years, in the month of May, we
    have the Ionel Perlea Festival and Contest. We’ve now had the 32nd
    edition. It is a festival that initially began with a lieder contest and which,
    in time, gained its international scope, this year bringing together more than
    50 competitors, Romanian, but mostly foreign, and which is held with the Ionel
    Perlea Orchestra. The contest ends with a mandatory visit of all participants
    to the Ionel Perlea Memorial House in Ograda. Given
    that we’re speaking for our listeners abroad, Ionel Perlea is the one who put Ialomița
    and Romania on the world’s great lyrical map, and what I have in mind saying
    that are Europe’s great stages, and especially the Scala di Milano. Here, the conductor
    Ionel Perlea succeeded the great Arturo Toscanini, and Arturo Toscanini gave
    him his baton, deeming him as a worthy successor. Also, Ionel Perlea continued his
    world-level blazing trail from the Scala di Milano to the Metropolitan Opera in
    New York, there where, just like Arturo Toscanini, he also had an academic
    career as a professor. So we can somehow link Ionel Perlea’s personality to
    this contest, in a bid to promote Ialomita County as well.


    There are two ongoing cultural programs carried by the
    Ialomita County Council. With details on that, here is the manager of the Ionel Perlea
    Cultural Centre and the local correspondent of Radio Romania’s News and Current
    Affairs Channel, Clementina Tudor.


    The Bolomey Manor House has been
    refurbished with non-reimbursable funds and large-scale public events are
    intended to be organized on the premises, such as the Electric Castle Festival, which, in turn,
    is also staged around a manor house. The second
    project is a route along Ialomita river or along the Ialomita river banks. The route
    should be taken by boat by kayak, or by bike, or on foot, with several stopovers being organized here and there, where the tourists can have a rest and
    grab a bite. One such stopover point could by the Manasia manor house, which is
    also a tourist asset and which was refurbished with private funding. (EN)


  • January 10, 2021 UPDATE

    January 10, 2021 UPDATE

    COVID-19 Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the total number of coronavirus infections in Romania has passed 671,000 and the total death toll has reached over 16,600, after over 3,000 new cases and 62 deaths were reported on Sunday. 1,065 people are currently in intensive care. The largest number of cases, 825, was reported in the capital Bucharest. Since the start of the vaccination programme in Romania on December 27, more than 100,000 people have received the anti-COVID-19 vaccine. Mild and common side effects have been reported in 350 cases, mostly headaches, muscle pain, fever, asthenia or rashes. The next stage in the vaccination campaign, addressing the elderly and chronic patients, is scheduled to start at the end of next week. The Government is to pass an emergency order granting bonuses to the personnel involved in the anti-COVID National Vaccination Programme, the health minister Vlad Voiculescu announced. Family physicians, who are regarded as a vital element in the immunisation campaign, will also be paid.



    FILM colectiv / “Collective, the Romanian documentary by Alexander Nanau covering a journalist investigation into the corruption in Romanian healthcare, won the award for best foreign-language film of the US National Society of Film Critics. The documentary colectiv is Romanias nomination for the 2021 Oscars in the “best international feature film, previously known as best foreign film. This is the first time that Romania submits a documentary in the competition for the Academy Awards.



    BANKS As of Monday, all banks in Romania are to submit to the National Tax Agency (ANAF) all data on the accounts held by private individuals and business, under an emergency order which transposes a European directive. The new legislation is designed to help the authorities fight against money laundering and terrorism financing. An electronic tax registry will become operational, containing banking and payment accounts identified by International Bank Account Number. The Agency will thus be able to monitor money circuits in Romania and to identify money laundering attempts.



    SCHOOLS Romanian students resume online classes on Monday, for the last 3 weeks of the first half of the academic year. A one-week vacation follows, and the second semester, beginning on February 8, might bring Romanias 3 million primary, secondary and high school students back into schools. This is one of the options considered by the authorities, depending on the latest COVID-19 developments. Another option is for only pre-schoolers and primary school students to resume face-to-face classes, while in a third scenario 8th and 12th graders might also get back to school.



    EMPLOYEES 1.25 million people were working in public institutions in Romania in November 2020, over 64% of them in the central public administration. According to the Finance Ministry, nearly 600,000 of these jobs are entirely funded from the state budget. The largest number of jobs is reported in public education (almost 300,000), followed by the Interior Ministry (125,000). Local public administration units had 450,000 employees in November, more than half of them in jobs fully financed from the state budget.



    COMPLAINTS Almost half of the complaints filed in 2020 to the European Consumer Centre in Romania concerned the transport sector. People were unhappy with the services received from air, road, railway and naval transport companies, as well as from car rental companies. Other complaints concerned clothing and footwear, restaurants and hotels, as well as entertainment and cultural activities, the National Consumer Protection Authority says.



    WEATHER A code yellow alert for heavy snowfalls is in place until Monday afternoon in the south and south-west of the country and the capital Bucharest. A layer of 10-20 cm of snow is expected in these areas. Snowfalls, glaze and temperatures of up to 2 degrees Celsius are forecast in Bucharest for the next 4 days. (tr. A.M. Popescu)

  • Effects of the political crisis in Bucharest

    Effects of the political crisis in Bucharest

    The Romanian Social Democrats, who have been ruling the country for only one year alongside their junior partners, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), have managed to devour two prime ministers. The internal crisis within the Social Democratic Party (PSD), triggered by misunderstandings between the party leader Liviu Dragnea and the two prime ministers, Sorin Grindeanu and Mihai Tudose respectively, which Dragnea himself proposed for the post, has turned into a serious governmental crisis, with all the associated consequences.



    Last summer the Social Democrats got rid of Sorin Grindeanu, following a scenario unheard of in Romania’s post-communist history. At the time, PSD toppled its own government through a no-confidence vote. This week however, things went smoothly, with Mihai Tudose in the role of the victim. He tendered his resignation without burning his bridges, in spite of the fact that his conflict with Dragnea was at its peak. According to commentators, the last straw to break the camel’s back was Tudose’s refusal to further collaborate with Interior Minister Carmen Dan, one of Dragnea’s protégées, after a scandalous case of pedophilia in the Romanian Police.



    Tudose’s resignation did not go unnoticed in the international press. “Romania has lost its second prime minister in seven months after Mihai Tudoses own political party withdrew its backing. The Social Democrat (PSD) prime minister said he was resigning with his head high”, the BBC reports. “The party has been riven by a power struggle which also claimed his predecessor, Sorin Grindeanu, in June”, the BBC also says.



    Reuters also reported on this topic saying that “tensions between Tudose, appointed in June, and the party’s powerful leader Liviu Dragnea erupted last week when the prime minister asked his interior minister, a close Dragnea ally, to quit, accusing her publicly of lying to him. She refused. Monday’s vote by the 67-member PSD executive committee is seen consolidating the grip on power exerted by Dragnea, who pushed out Tudose’s predecessor Sorin Grindeanu in a no-confidence motion last summer.”



    On the other hand, as a consequence of the political crisis, the domestic currency, the leu, has dramatically depreciated against the euro, reaching a record low level. The main market indicators do not fare better either. Political instability generates concern in the business environment, for which reason such situations should be solved as soon as possible, representatives of the banking system say.



    Head of the Romanian Banking Association, Sergiu Oprescu explains: “Obviously, in such moments banks assess the situation in terms of stability and predictability. In this case, it normally translates into concerns. We hope that low predictability situations such as this one will be as short as possible. Any form of clarification of less-clear political situations, such as the current one, could increase the trust of market players and investors.”



    It remains to be seen how things will evolve in the economic and financial banking sector, especially if the political crisis continues.

  • Banking Performance and the European Currency

    Banking Performance and the European Currency

    Romanias economic growth has been solid and sustainable, but any side-slip could threaten its development in the coming years, said at a forum held in Bucharest the Governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isarescu. He warned that errors might occur in the economic policies, and the global economic crisis has shown that such errors are hard to correct. He also said that the transition to the European currency should be made at the right moment, after all the necessary economic reforms have been implemented. “When the crisis broke out, Romania was not compliant with any of the four Maastricht criteria, but all of them are now observed. The big challenge is to ensure the sustainability of these accomplishments. Therefore, economic policies are meant to maintain the balance that was so difficult to strike, to generate rapid economic growth, but one which should not affect that balance, and they must do that by focusing on structural reforms, the Governor said.



    The target set by Bucharest for joining the Eurozone is 2019, but Mugur Isarescu believes that Romania currently has a number of other key objectives it must pay attention to at present, among which developing infrastructure, solving the high rate of youth unemployment, improving the efficiency of key economic sectors, such as energy and transport, and ensuring a better absorption of European funds. All the participants in the economic forum held in Bucharest stressed the fact that the risks threatening the south-east European economies, the Romanian one included, are external in nature, and mainly deriving from the situation of Greece and the conflict in Ukraine.



    Statistical data, too, have confirmed that Romanias economic situation is good, as information made public by the National Statistics Institute shows that net investments in the national economy grew by 8.5% in the first quarter, as compared to the same period last year. Setting 2019 as the target for joining the Eurozone also has a symbolic significance, because in that period Romania will be holding the rotating presidency of the EU, said the Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who also mentioned the possibility of a referendum on the Eurozone accession.



    Attending the economic forum in Romanias capital, the IMF representative for Romania and Bulgaria, Guillermo Tolosa, said that the targets that the Romanian government has set until the end of 2015 are reachable, but that next year it will have to make even bigger efforts to fulfil all the objectives the government has undertaken.

  • The Swiss Franc Crisis

    The Swiss Franc Crisis

    Disgruntled by the soaring exchange rate of the Swiss Franc against the Leu and faced with difficulties in paying the monthly installments for their Swiss currency loans in due time, thousands of Romanians took to the streets in Bucharest and other large cities, calling for legislation that should allow for the conversion of all foreign currency loans to the historic rate plus 20%. The National Authority for Consumer Protection has argued in favour of a solution where both loan takers and banks should share in the risks. Here is the head of this authority Marius Dunca with more details.



    Marius Dunca: “There is always talk about the risks banks expose themselves to, such as insolvency and other arguments in their favour. In that respect, I hereby dare all banks and financial institutions involved in the management of the Swiss Franc crisis answer the following question: what solutions are you offering to your clients who risk defaulting on their payments, clients with good creditworthiness prior to the crisis? What kind of solutions do you have in mind for the entire crediting term, not just on short term?”



    Speaking on a private television station, Finance Minister Darius Valcov said he expected the National Bank and commercial banks in general to get more involved in this matter, feeling that payment rescheduling remains the best possible solution.



    Darius Valcov: “I would like to see the National Bank getting more involved in this issue, all the more so as it has the means. I don’t believe in setting the exchange rate at a historic level, by means of Government Ordinance or by means of a law adopted in Parliament. Everyone with basic knowledge of economics understands the risks befalling Romania, if the worst comes to the worst”.



    The rescheduling of payments for Romanians with loans in the Swiss currency would entail a drop in the monthly installments down to 35% in the first two years. In the ensuing period loan takers would benefit from a tax deduction of up to 55 euros per month, with the state stepping in to cover these costs. In turn, the National Bank and commercial banks have called for case-specific solutions, arguing that the solution to convert foreign currency loans would go against the Constitution and incur significant losses. Over 75,000 people in Romania have taken out Swiss currency loans with a total of 14 lending institutions.