Radio România Internațional

Tag: citizen

  • November 9, 2022

    November 9, 2022

    ENERGY Romania’s ruling coalition
    convenes today in an attempt to reach consensus with respect to regulating
    energy prices and increasing pensions. The Social Democratic Party and the
    National Liberal Party are struggling to reach common ground on these major
    issues. While the Social Democrats plead for a regulated energy market, the
    Liberals favour a semi regulated market. As for public pensions, the Liberals
    want a 15% increase, whereas the Social Democrats would like smaller pension
    benefits to be increased by a higher percentage. Meanwhile, on Tuesday the
    Chamber of Deputies passed a law on the decarbonisation of the energy sector.
    Also on Tuesday, Deputies approved the sale of the country’s uranium
    concentrate reserve to the Nuclearelectrica national corporation. Both
    laws will be forwarded to president Klaus Iohanis for promulgation.


    ELECTIONS The Republicans are set to
    win the US House of Representatives majority following Tuesday’s midterm
    elections. In the Senate, the race is still tight, with voting on-going in the
    western states. According to CBS News, the Republicans won 198 seats and
    the Democrats 167 seats in the House of Representatives, but ballot counting
    continues. The shift in the House majority will significantly affect president
    Joe Biden’s agenda in the second half of his term in office, including the US
    approach of the situation in Ukraine, Radio Romania’s correspondent in
    Washington reports. Final election results may still take days or even weeks to
    be announced, given the differences in ballot counting systems and possible
    court proceedings in the states with more competitive races.


    AWARD The European Parliament last
    night awarded its 2022 European Citizen’s prizes. The 30 winners include the
    Save the Children Romania organisation, for its assistance to the children in
    Ukraine. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Save the Children
    organisation has provided basic food products, hygiene, clothing, footwear,
    children’s products, blankets and other immediate assistance products.It has responded to the acute needs
    of immediate humanitarian assistance, information and emotional support, both
    at the border and in the centres where refugee mothers and children are housed.
    Awarded every year, the European Citizen’s prize goes to projects organised by
    people or organisations that encourage mutual understanding between people in
    the EU, cross-border cooperation that builds a stronger European spirit and EU
    values and fundamental rights.


    NATO The meeting of NATO foreign ministers in
    Bucharest on November 29th and 30th confirms Romania’s
    role in the current security context and reflects the Allies’ interest in the
    region. The statement was made by Romania’s permanent representative to NATO,
    Dan Neculăescu. He mentioned that Romania hosted a summit in 2008, a
    meeting of NATO defence ministers and a meeting of the NATO Military Committee,
    the organisation’s highest military authority. The meeting of foreign ministers
    in late November will be the first of this kind ever hosted by Romania. It will
    include 4 sessions focusing on the implementation of the Madrid Summit
    decisions, the war in Ukraine, energy security and partners. Invited to attend
    the meeting are also Ukraine, the R. of Moldova, Georgia, Finland, Sweden and
    Bosnia.


    MILITARY The French Army is sending
    13 Leclerc tanks to the Cincu military base in Romania. The equipment is
    scheduled to reach the military base in central Romania by rail in about a week.
    The Leclerc is one of the most
    expensive tanks in the world, able to hit targets 4 km away while moving at 50
    kmph. France will send to Cincu a total of nearly 150 combat vehicles with
    complete equipment and ammunition, in order to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank
    in the context of the war in Ukraine. The NATO battle group in Romania was
    created in May and is spearheaded by France. (AMP)

  • Funky Citizens

    Funky Citizens

    Funky Citizens is a meeting place
    for the citizens who will not settle for the status quo, but understand the
    role they play in a democracy and often get involved in decision-making
    processes. The organisation’s strongest weapons are the initiatives that use
    technology, data and communication-based advocacy, and civic education. The NGO
    already has notable experience in encouraging the citizens who dream of an
    urban space with a coherent idea of development, in which citizens get involved
    in defining their shared space and improving their life standards.


    Elena Calistru, a member of the
    European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), and the president and co-founder
    of the organisation, tells us how it all started:


    Elena Calistru: Around
    2011 – 2012 we realised that Romania lacked a movement or organisation that
    made citizen involvement desirable for people, especially in areas that are
    rather difficult to understand. We started with a project where we monitored
    the spending of public funds, we monitored the national budget actually, which
    we tried to make comprehensible for citizens. We worked on the assumption that
    people would like to get involved in public life, but that they often find this
    kind of information very difficult to understand, and that some effort is required
    to explain to them certain basic aspects, like how legislation works, how
    institutions work and so on. This is how Funky Citizens was born.


    We asked Elena Calistru whether it
    was easy to find members:


    Elena Calistru: Obviously
    there were not a lot of citizens willing to get involved, and as an
    organisation we didn’t imagine we will get millions of people checking on local
    budgets. But we do believe that, if we get involved, things will change, and
    judging by the response we have seen since our establishment in 2012, I would
    say there are more and more people interested in what happens at local and
    national level and more and more people are getting involved in our activities,
    are donating funds, are reading our surveys.


    How can a citizen get involved in
    public life?


    Elena Calistru: Most
    often, the first step is to get informed. It sounds like a cliché, but it is
    true. Information is power, information is easier nowadays thanks to the
    internet and finding out how we can contact our MP or mayor is just a click
    away. But we tell people that citizen involvement is like sports: there are
    several levels. Ideally, we should all exercise for at least 30 minutes a day. In
    terms of citizenship, this means checking from time to time what the mayor has
    done, what parliament has done, what the government has done, and stay up to
    date on events. And obviously go vote. Then, just like in sports, there is the
    option of exercising weekly, maybe take up a sport, or go cycling. This would
    translate into signing a petition, for example, or writing to our MPs on a
    topic of interest. And the third level, the ‘professional athlete’ so to say,
    is running a marathon. This may mean joining a citizen intervention
    organisation, or challenging the local budget. We have these rights, as
    citizens.


    The number of participants in Funky
    Citizens projects varies, our guest explained, and during election periods it
    may reach thousands of volunteers. Elena Calistru, the president and co-founder
    of the organisation, also spoke about some of its most recent initiatives:


    Elena Calistru: In the
    years to come we will have 2 major challenges: one of them is to expand our
    work at local level. This is something we are already doing, we started last
    year, we are trying to go to local communities and organise training sessions
    on how local budgets are made, on how citizens can get involved, and we work
    with partner journalists. The second challenge has to do with our presence in
    the European Economic and Social Committee and other bodies, our organisation
    has been working for a while now in international projects, especially in
    Central and Eastern Europe, I have been a member of the Committee since last
    year. We are trying to make the voice of several Romanian NGOs better heard in European
    institutions.


    Whether we speak about European
    funds for national or local projects, when we look at the efficiency of
    spending in Romania the common element is a lack of impact. The main reasons
    for that are the absence of mechanisms to identify long-term development needs,
    prioritising financial needs based on political criteria rather than actual
    needs, and the waste of public money through corruption, fraud or poor
    management. (A.M.P.)