Radio România Internațional

Tag: car industry

  • October 17, 2024 UPDATE

    October 17, 2024 UPDATE

    COUNCIL – Romania’s President, Klaus Iohannis, is attending the two-day European Council meeting in Brussels. The agenda includes such topics as the war in Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East, EU competitiveness, migration, foreign affairs, as well as developments in the Republic of Moldova. European leaders will discuss the latest developments in Russia’s war of aggression, as well as multidimensional support for Ukraine. Regarding the Middle East, participants will also address the ‘alarming’ situation and the ‘risks of escalation of violence in the region’. At Romania’s proposal, the agenda of the meeting will also include talks about the situation in the Republic of Moldova, as well as support for its accession to the European Union, especially for supporting internal reforms and for strengthening resilience and stability. Ahead of the upcoming election and the referendum on the European integration of the Republic of Moldova, the issue of Russian interference in the election process will also be discussed.

     

    WAGES – The minimum wage in Romania will be 810 EUR starting January 2025, the government announced after talks with civil society. Minimum wage in Romania is thus approach EU levels, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said, adding that Romania complies with the directive according to which the minimum level must be somewhere between 47% and 52% of the European minimum wage.

     

    ELECTION – Thursday is the deadline for submitting candidacies for the parliamentary election in Romania. 21 parties have enrolled in the race. PSD’s lists for the Senate opens with Adrian Streinu-Cercel and starts with Mihai Ghigiu for the Chamber of Deputies.  The Liberals field Sorin Cîmpeanu in top position for the Senate and Sebastian Burduja for the Chamber of Deputies. USR has picked Clotilde Armand at the top of its list for the Senate and Claudiu Năsui for the Chamber of Deputies. The Right Force has chosen Ludovic Orban in top position for the Chamber of Deputies and Eugen Tomac for the Senate. Eduard Novak is running for a position of deputy in Bucharest on behalf of UDMR. AUR has designated its president, George Simion, as its top candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, and Petrișor Peiu at the top of its list for the Senate. According to the Central Election Bureau, USR, the Right Force and UDMR will be the first to appear on the ballots.

     

    DEFENSE – The Romanian Minister of National Defense, Angel Tîlvăr, is participating, on October 17 and 18, in the meeting of the NATO defense ministers, taking place in Brussels. The meeting’s agenda includes topics of importance for the Alliance, in order to implement the decisions adopted by the heads of state and government at the NATO Summit of July in Washington DC.

     

    CAR INDUSTRY – The Association of Car Manufacturers and Importers today hosted a new edition of the Sustainable and Accessible Mobility Forum in Bucharest. Representatives of car manufacturers, political leaders, decision-makers and other stakeholders from 35 countries attended the event. The car industry must be supported more by the government and the European Commission, as the next couple of years will be difficult for this sector, which is shaping up as an engine of economic growth, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said. Bucharest is preparing support programmes, considering the entire car industry is shrinking. Without state intervention, the industry could see massive layoffs in a few years. The Prime Minister also recalled that Romania’s reindustrialization plans includes facilities for the national car industry, designed to turn Romania into a hub of technology and innovation in Southeastern Europe in the next 10 years.

     

    MOLDOVA – 3.3 million voters are expected to hit the polls on October 20 in the Republic of Moldova for a historic ballot: a presidential election and a referendum on Moldova’s EU accession. According to the Central Election Commission, some 2,219 polls have been set up, and for the first time the ballots are printed in Romanian and 5 minority languages: Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Găgăuz, Russian and Romani. 231 stations are open in 37 countries, 60 in Italy, 26 in Germany, 20 in France and 17 in Great Britain. Moldovans can also vote in one of the 16 stations open in Romania, the same as in the United States. For security reasons, only two stations will be available in Russia, both in Moscow. 2 stations will be made available in Ukraine, in Kyiv and Odesa. The incumbent president, Maia Sandu, urged Moldovans to take part in the referendum, arguing the process will only take 3 minutes, compared to the decades Moldova had to wait to join the free and developed world.

     

    OECD – Romania’s accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will spell benefits in terms of investment, and the Republic of Moldova might also take advantage of this position, Moldova’s Central Bank governor Anca Dragu said. Investment are safer, clearer and more dynamic at OECD level, while the best practices Romania is currently learning will also transfer to the Republic of Moldova. 65% of Moldova’s external trade is EU-bound, while half of it goes through Romania. (VP)

  • Brexit, the final straight before the finishing line

    Brexit, the final straight before the finishing line

    An unregulated Brexit might generate losses of millions of jobs and billions of Euros in the car industry, the European producers have warned. The main European carmakers federations as well as 17 national groups, are drawing attention that a no deal Brexit would mean the reintroduction of customs duties, which will affect the production lines of various components and would bring about additional costs worth billions of Euros. This is not the only fear voiced over a member state leaving the EU, all the more so as these days, when Brexit is imminent, it is not very clear how it will occur.



    The warning has been launched by the car industry representatives from the EU states which employs 13.8 million people, that is 6% of the total work force, but there are uncertainties in all domains of activity. The British PM Boris Johnson wants Brexit to occur on October 31 with or without an agreement, but parliament passed a law that stipulates that if an agreement is not reached in due time, the prime minister should ask for a new Brexit deadline, namely January 31, 2020.



    Brexit “goes against our sense of history and the spirit of Winston Churchill, who in his day supported a United States of Europe”, said the president of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker in an interview to the Spanish daily El Pais. Juncker regrets that “the Commission kept out of the referendum campaign” in 2016 when Great Britain held the referendum on its EU membership and when almost 52% of the British citizens voted for Britain’s exiting the EU. According to Jean Claude Juncker, there was a campaign of lies and fake news ahead of this referendum, and he added that quote: “We at the Commission decided not to intervene, at the request of David Cameron, and that was a big mistake” end of quote. JC Juncker again warned of the danger posed by reinstating strict controls at the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Meanwhile, the attempts at concluding an agreement continue, the Irish backstop being the main issue still to be solved.



    Political analyst Iulian Chifu, the director of the Center for Conflict Prevention and Early Warning explains: “That is the biggest problem, because we are speaking of an internal border which is also included in the famous inter-Irish peace agreement. So things are very complicated.”



    The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says his new proposals are feasible, but the European Parliament believes these are not solutions to the real problems if the Irish safety net needs to be removed, namely the economy of the entire island, the full observance of the Good Friday Agreement and the single market’s integrity. From Romania’s standpoint, on the other hand, Brexit raises concerns regarding the rights of Romanians living in Britain. The Romanian Foreign Ministry is monitoring the registration process of Romanians in the UK, with a view to getting a new post-Brexit status, and is granting them consular assistance.



    The British Government, however, has constantly given assurances that the rights of the European citizens will be respected no matter how Britain exits the EU — with or without an agreement. In a debate held in Bucharest at the end of September, the head of the Brexit Office with the Romanian Foreign Ministry, Adina Badescu, said that the number of co-nationals officially registered in Britain is 433 thousand, but that their number is probably higher.



    Adina Badescu: “The registration process for getting a new status has started in Great Britain, it is unfolding smoothly and, so far, we have over 187 thousand citizens who have applied for a pre-settled or settled status. We expect more people to get a pre-settled status, rather than a settled one.”



    Attending the debate, the Advisor to the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania (CCIR), Lazăr Comănescu, said that the Brexit lesson is that the EU should no longer allow exceptions from its set of rules and formats, because the UK has had a special status within the EU ever since 1973.



    Lazar Comanescu: “A first conclusion — in the future, the construction of the European project should be conducted more rigorously. Rules are for everybody. The second conclusion is that we must learn from the fact that the EU had a voice and stood out as an actor that matters globally there where policies were 100% EU related.”



    If we want the EU to continue to be assertive at global level, the EU should extend the domains in which its policies should be truly common policies, Lazar Comanescu has also said. (translation by L. Simion and E. Enache)

  • May 24, 2018

    May 24, 2018

    CAR INDUSTRY — Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis has today said in Pitesti, southern Romania that the Government should make all efforts to bring over to Romania new and highly performing foreign firms, particularly in those sectors of the economy which offer spectacular competitive advantages. Attending a debate organised by the Car Manufacturers’ Association, Iohannis said Romania is among the ten largest producers in the field in the EU, with over 350,000 cars produced at the end of 2017. Overall, the car building industry produces over 25% of Romania’s exports, and the companies active in the field are real pillars of the Romanian economy, the president has also said. We recall the French group Renault owns the Dacia factory in Mioveni, near Pitesti, and the Americans from Ford have invested in a factory in Craiova, in the southwest. Representatives of the two major companies have frequently asked the Romanian authorities to improve the transport infrastructure in order to maintain the global competitiveness of their production operations.



    ECONOMY — The Romanian Government will further pursue a tax reduction policy, also meant to increase the minimum wage and state pensions by 2020, in an attempt to improve living standards, the president of the Social Democratic Party, the main party in the ruling coalition, Liviu Dragnea told Reuters on Wednesday. He added that choosing an optional private pension scheme might become optional. The European Commission estimates that Romania will register a deficit of 3.4% of the GDP this year, exceeding the 2.9% target, if no supplementary measures are taken to reduce costs. Liviu Dragnea is hopeful however that the Romanian Government will observe the deficit target without taking other measures and he confirmed the 5.5% economic growth target for this year. According to Dragnea, by 2020, social contributions will further be reduced, the minimum wage will be of at least 300 Euros, whereas the minimum pension will increase to 200 Euros.



    REVOLUTION CASE — Romania’s former PM, Petre Roman, appeared today for hearings at the Prosecutor General’s Office in the 1989 anti-communist Revolution case, in which he is accused of crimes against humanity. Last month, Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis, approved the prosecutors’ request to start prosecution, against Romania’s former leftist president, Ion Iliescu, Petre Roman and the former deputy Prime Minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu. They allegedly orchestrated a military diversion, meant to give them legitimacy as leaders of the then newly instated power, after dictator Nicolae Ceausescu fled Bucharest city. 1,166 people died in December 1989, over 800 of them loosing their lives after Ceausescu was toppled. This week, Ion Iliescu also went to the Prosecutor General’s Office where prosecutors told him the investigation against him has been extended. Both Roman and Iliescu rejected the accusations.



    ITALY — At the end of lengthy political negotiations which lasted 11 weeks, Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, has asked Giuseppe Conte, a professor of administrative law to form a coalition government, made up of the far right League and the 5 Star anti-establishment movement. In order to garner support and form the new government, Conte, who lacks political experience, will hold talks today with the leaders of the political parties, to later meet again with the president of the republic. The voting in Parliament is due next week. The common program negotiated by the two parties puts and end to austerity and is meant to adjust deficits, providing for a policy meant to achieve economic growth, adding to which will be tough security and immigration measures.



    GDPR — The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force on May 25, 2018 in all member states to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe. The new regulation stipulates how companies gather data about people and how they use it and brings in multiple changes, among which the need for “genuine consent.”



    TIFF — The 17th edition of the Transylvania International Film Festival, TIFF, opens up on Friday in Cluj Napoca, in the northwest, with “Foxtrot”, a controversial, award-winning film inspired by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the director Samuel Moaz in attendance. The 12 films running in the official competition feel the pulse of the new generation of filmmakers around the world. This year’s edition celebrates the Great Union Centennial by a selection of Romanian films, among which “The Uprising” (1965), which brought director Mircea Muresan the debut prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Soprano Angela Gheorghiu is the honorary guest of TIFF, which runs until June 3.