Radio România Internațional

Tag: budget rectification

  • September 24, 2024 UPDATE

    September 24, 2024 UPDATE

    Budget – The Romanian government approved the adjustment of the state budget, social security budget and unemployment insurance budget, taking into account the macroeconomic forecasts made by the National Commission for Strategy and Prognosis. The indices on which the adjustment is based include a revised 2.8% economic growth rate, an updated GDP of nearly 353 billion Euros and a 6.9% budget deficit. The adjustment focuses on 4 major areas: supporting investments, education, healthcare and social programs for citizens.

     

    UN – Romania’s President, Klaus Iohannis, is taking part on Tuesday and Wednesday in the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, held in New York. The central theme of the current session is ‘Unity in diversity for the progress of peace, sustainable development and human dignity for everyone everywhere.’ The president’s participation in the UNGA this year is, according to the presidency, an opportunity to highlight Romania’s contribution to the global effort to step up progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Mr. Iohannis will give an address on Wednesday in the plenary meeting, when he will plead for maintaining multi-lateral dialogue, especially within the UN, as a key element of regional and global security. The Romanian official will also underscore Romania’s efforts and contribution at all levels to solving current global issues, from security crises such as the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East, to major challenges for mankind, including climate change, the deterioration of human rights and cyber threats. Mr. Iohannis will also plead for a reformed UN system, able to meet all current and future challenges in an efficient and transparent manner.

     

    Ambassador – Romania is, along the other EU member states, among the main guardians and contributors in the field of human rights, the Romanian Ambassador to the UN, Cornel Feruţă, said in an interview to AGERPRES. He emphasized that Romania has a well-defined profile in terms of promoting international law, of a rule-based international order and the rule of law. According to the Romanian diplomat, the country has credibility in the international community thanks to its openness and willingness to support partners in various parts of the world, especially in Africa, Asia – Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean, in fulfilling goals related to sustainable development and to strengthening public sector capabilities. Romania also intends to remain involved in defining global policies to fight climate change. The Romanian diplomat also said the dynamics in the diplomatic community in New York reflects the developments at global level, specifically the war of aggression waged by Russia for over 2.5 years against Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 tragedy.

     

    Conference – Early education is the cornerstone of children’s development, that’s why any investment in this sector is, in fact, an investment in the future, the education minister Ligia Deca said on Tuesday. According to her, this was also one of the central topics of discussions at the international conference “A bright future beyond borders: investment in early education and care of children”. Ligia Deca participated, on Tuesday, in this event organized in Chişinău by the UNICEF Offices in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, in collaboration with the UNICEF Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia. Minister Deca wrote on a social network that Romania has understood the importance of early education, and the new Law on pre-university education reflects this. “Our country remains close to the Republic of Moldova, including in terms of the development of the education sector – the close collaboration that we already have is an important step in order to find solutions, together, to the problems that our systems are facing”, Ligia Deca also wrote.

     

    Eurobarometer – 68% of Romanians believe that the EU should have a stronger coordinating role in the field of energy, according to a Eurobarometer survey published on Tuesday. At the European level, the proportion is 77%. According to the research, 8 out of 10 Europeans and almost 7 out of 10 Romanians agree that the climate objectives of the EU will stimulate the creation of new jobs and will attract investments in the clean energy sector. At the same time, 76% of Europeans and 61% of Romanians believe that European policies will reduce dependence on energy imports – the Eurobarometer survey also shows.

     

    Danube – On Tuesday, the Interior Ministry asked the structures at the national and territorial level to be prepared for intervention to manage the risks related to the increase in the flow of the Danube River. Even if the existing information indicates that the estimated situation is not one that poses particular problems, the state secretary Raed Arafat emphasized that the level of preparation must be very high. The head of the Department for Emergency Situations emphasized the need for the representatives of the territorial structures of Romanian Waters to collaborate with those of the inspectorates for emergency situations. According to the National Administration Romanian Waters, the flow of the Danube at the entrance to Romania will be no more than 8,000 cubic meters per second, between September 29-30.

     

    Drone – Specialists of the Defense Ministry and the Romanian Intelligence Service found, on Tuesday, fragments of a Russian drone in an area south of the locality of Plauru in Tulcea county (east), outside the inhabited perimeter of the commune, the Defense Ministry informs. Forces of the relevant ministry continued the search for possible fragments of a drone that fell on the Romanian bank of the Danube, as a result of the attacks carried out in recent weeks by Russian forces on civilian targets and port infrastructure in neighboring Ukraine. The Ministry from Bucharest reiterates the firm message of condemnation of these attacks carried out by Russia against some objectives and elements of Ukrainian civil infrastructure, which are unjustified and in serious contradiction with the norms of international law. (LS)

  • November 26, 2021 UPDATE

    November 26, 2021 UPDATE

    Government — The coalition government in Bucharest, led by the Liberal Nicolae Ciuca and instated on Thursday, approved a budget rectification on Friday, the second of this year. The decision was considered an emergency, so as not to delay the payment of pensions and salaries next month. The Ministries of Finance, Health and Labor received money while the Agriculture and Transport Ministries lost funds. According to official data, the budget deficit remains at 7.13% of Gross Domestic Product. The autumn forecast shows an economic growth rate in Romania of 7% for the current year. On Thursday, in the inaugural meeting, an emergency ordinance on the reorganization of the government was adopted, because the new cabinet has two more ministries as compared to the previous one. The law also stipulates that the prerogatives of the two deputy prime ministers, from the parties allied with PNL, Sorin Grindeanu (PSD) and Kelemen Hunor (UDMR), are established by the decision of the prime minister. The ordinance also allows for occupying the vacancies in public institutions.



    Covid — Romanian schools are beginning to receive noninvasive tests for rapid detection of the novel coronavirus. The first tranche, of about 6.5 million saliva tests, was distributed on Thursday, the Education Minister, Sorin Cîmpeanu announced. The rapid testing of preschoolers and students is set to begin next week and will be done twice a week for children attending classes. 1,958 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the last 24 hours and 160 deaths, of which 45 were registered before the reference period, the Strategic Communication Group announced on Friday. The National Public Health Institute announced that over 70% of the cases registered in the last week were in unvaccinated people. Since the start of the vaccination campaign, a little over 7.7 million people have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.



    AWARD — The Romanian swimmer David Popovici won the 2021 Summer Piotr Nurowski “Best European Young Athlete” Prize (PNP) in Europe, awarded by the General Assembly of the European Olympic Committees during an event hosted by Samorin, Slovakia. Aged 17, Popovici won gold in 2021 at the European Short Course Swimming Championships, and another three gold medals in European Youth Championships. He broke two world junior records in the 100m and 200m freestyle events, and ranked 4th at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the 100m freestyle event. Enrolled at Dinamo sports club in Bucharest, Popovici fought for the prize against four other athletes, Sky Brown from Great Britain (skateboarding), Adriana Cerezo Iglesias from Spain (taekwondo), Viktoria Listunova from Russia (artistic gymnastics) and Adriana Vilagos from Serbia (athletics). The Piotr Nurowski award was created in memory of Piotr Nurowski, former President of the Polish Olympic Committee who died in a plane crash in 2010. In 2012, the Romanian gymnast Larisa Iordache was voted 2012 Summer Piotr Nurowski “Second Best European Young Athlete”.



    B9 – On November 25 and 26, Romania co-chaired with Poland the 3rd meeting of the defense ministers of the Bucharest 9 or Bucharest Format, representing Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The meeting in Bucharest was a continuation of the discussions held this spring, on the occasion of the B9 Summit held in Romania, with the extraordinary participation, in a videoconference, of the US President, Joe Biden. The agenda was structured in two main sessions: the first was dedicated to the results of the NATO summit in Brussels, of June, to the process of developing the new Strategic Concept of the Alliance and implementing the NATO 2030 agenda. The second session focused on cooperation between NATO and the European Union, the Strategic Compass, resilience and military mobility. The meeting in Bucharest takes place in an important context for the security and stability of the allied eastern flank and the Euro-Atlantic area, being an opportunity to send a clear message on the unity and solidarity of the states in this region, show a Defense Ministry communiqué. (LS)

  • August 11, 2021

    August 11, 2021

    Rectification — The ruling coalition in Bucharest continues negotiations on the draft budget rectification law, which is to be approved next week. On Tuesday evening, after a meeting of the ruling parties’ leaders, the Liberal Prime Minister Florin Cîţu announced that additional funds would go to the ministries of Health, Transport, Education, Justice and Energy. Discussions are still open at the Ministry of Development, the PM added, after the line minister, Cseke Atilla, presented a project for the launch of a national investment program, of 50 billion lei (about 10 billion Euros), on several components – roads, water, sewerage and natural gas infrastructure. It is a state investment in local infrastructure projects, correlated with the period of investments from European funds. Today, the Liberal Party leader, Ludovic Orban, has stated that the participants in the governing coalition meeting decided to start the new investment program for the local communities.



    Covid – 19 Romania — 326 news Covid-19 cases were reported in Romania on Wednesday out of more than 29 thousand tests. 8 people have died, and 710 are hospitalized, of whom 96 are in ICUs. The coordinator of the National Vaccination Campaign, Valeriu Gheorghiţă, stated that, although the number of new Covid cases is growing slowly, growth is progressive and sustained, therefore, in a pessimistic scenario, more than 1,500 daily cases might be registered in the second half of September. On the other hand, the governing coalition has agreed to grant meal vouchers to people who get both doses of the vaccine, to give vaccination a boost.



    Inflation — In Romania, the annual inflation rate went up to 5% in July as against 3.9% in June. Prices of non-foods have grown by 8%, of services by 2.74%, and of foods by 2.33%, the National Institute of Statistics- INS shows. Higher prices were reported for electricity, gas, fuels and edible oil. On Monday, Romania’s National Bank increased its inflation forecast to 5.6% for the end of this year, according to Governor Mugur Isărescu. Romania is no longer a country of those with low salaries — the PM Florin Cîțu replied, adding that more than 1% of employees have a net salary higher than the equivalent of 3,000 Euros, and the share of people who have net salaries of over 1,000 Euros is on the rise. According to the INS, the average net salary stands at 3,541 lei (about 700 Euros).



    Football — Romania’s football champions, CFR Cluj (northwest), have failed to qualify to the Champions League play-offs, after losing 3-1, away from home, the match against the Swiss team Young Boys Bern, in the decisive leg of the third preliminary round. In Cluj, the score was equal, 1-1. CFR will play in the Europa League play-off with Red Star Belgrade. If they are eliminated, the CFR Cluj will still play in the Europa Conference League groups.



    Fires – In Greece, the population affected by the fires of the past two weeks, accuses the authorities of not having acted efficiently in the fight against the fire. The causes of the unprecedented disaster are also being investigated by the general prosecutor, as there are suspicions of an organized criminal activity. As many as 600 outbreaks are active, and the situation does not seem to be improving despite the huge efforts of the Greek firefighters, who have also received international aid. The most dangerous situation is in Evia Island, where more than 100 Romanian firefighters are operating. The Romanian firefighters have received much appreciation from the press, the locals, and also from their Greek colleagues for their intervention manner and courage. The Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has admitted that the government could have done more. He has promised that 500 million Euros worth of aid will be sent to the Peloponnese, in the Attica region near Athens and on the island of Evia, that new trees will be planted to replace the burned forests and that those who lost their properties will receive compensations. The damage is difficult to estimate, but the flames have already destroyed 65,000 hectares of vegetation. Fires have not yet been put out in Italy, northern Macedonia and Siberia, and in California 200,000 hectares of vegetation have burned in recent weeks. (LS)

  • Budget Rectification

    The Romanian Government will approve, on Tuesday, the 2nd budget rectification in 2014, which, all in all, is a positive one, just like the one operated in summer. However, some institutions and ministries will have their funds cut. According to the draft emergency ordinance on the state budget rectification posted on the site of the Finance Ministry, the Labor Ministry will receive most of the money, namely 1.2 billion lei for the payment of salaries and social services. The Ministry of Regional Development will receive additional funds worth almost 600 million lei while the Interior Ministry will get 250 million lei.



    Also the budgets of the Public Administration, Defense and Justice Ministries will be increased. The Foreign Ministry will benefit from additional funds worth 96 million lei for the functioning of diplomatic missions as well as for its development assistance programs. Additional amounts of money will also go to the Senate, the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the Ombudsman and the special services. In exchange, the Government will reduce the state budget expenses by almost 4 billion lei, through which projects benefiting from post-accession non-reimbursable external funds are co-financed. Of this sum, more than one billion lei accounts for cuts in the budget of the Government’s General Secretariat, which manages, through the Department for Infrastructure and Foreign Investments Projects, big infrastructure projects, mainly the building of highways.



    The Finance and Agriculture Ministries will lose in turn one billion lei, and the Healthcare Ministry will be deprived of almost 300 million lei. Nevertheless, the government will allot about 120 million lei to national healthcare programs related to HIV, oncology and TB, for the payment of salaries to the staff of hospitals under the authority of the local public administration, for ambulance services, the rehabilitation of maternities, the funding of after-hours medical centers, and for EBOLA prevention measures.



    Smaller sums of money will be cut from the Presidential Administration, the Romanian Academy, the Education, Sports and Culture Ministries. Under the 2nd budget rectification local authorities will receive more than 1.16 billion lei plus one billion lei through the Local Development National Program. The opposition claims that the money received by mayors has an electoral connotation, given the upcoming November presidential election.