Radio România Internațional

Tag: culture minister

  • April 4, 2018 UPDATE

    April 4, 2018 UPDATE

    MEDIA The Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest on Wednesday passed a draft that completes the Audio-visual law and under which radio and television stations in Romania must broadcast two advertisements of public interest. These are: “For a healthy economy, buy products made in Romania!” and “For a healthy environment, teach children to respect nature!” These two advertisements are to be broadcast free of charge without being included in the legal time slot allotted to commercials. The category of public interest announcements and advertisements also includes those referring to dangerous hydro-meteorological phenomena issued by the national authorities in the field. The draft will be submitted to the Senate for approval.





    SURVEY According to a survey published in Chisinau on Wednesday, Russian president Vladimir Putin and Romania’s former president Traian Basescu are the political personalities abroad electorate in the ex-soviet Romanian-speaking Republic of Moldova trusts the most. Putin comes first in the survey with 55% of the respondents being followed by Basescu with 44%. At the opposite pole there are Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, former Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili as well as the presidents of the United States and France, Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron respectively. The survey was carried out by the Moldovan Center for Sociological Research over March 10th and 27th.





    CENTRAL BANK The National Bank of Romania On Wednesday decided to maintain the monetary policy interest rate at 2.25%, against the expectations of most analysts, who anticipated an increase in figures. The central bank also decided to maintain the earned deposit interest rate at 1.25% per year and the credit interest rate at 3.25% per year. The Board of Directors of the National Bank of Romania also decided to maintain the current level of the mandatory minimum reserves for liabilities in the national currency, the leu, as well as in hard currency for crediting institutions.





    MOTION The simple motion initiated by the National Liberal Party, in opposition, against the Culture Minister, George Ivaşcu, was rejected on Wednesday in a plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies with the Romanian Parliament, just a day after the document had been debated in a plenary session of Parliament. The Liberals deplore what they call negligence in preparing the events devoted to the 100th anniversary of the Great Union and voice concern about the Government’s inability to properly organise the December 1 celebrations. They also say a public debate meant to find solutions and reconsider a national plan devoted to the Great Union Centennial is needed. In response, the Culture Minister, George Ivaşcu, gave assurances that he is constantly concerned about how to efficiently organise the celebrations devoted to all Romanians.



  • April 4, 2018

    April 4, 2018

    PROTOCOLS — The Superior Council of Magistracy, the High Court of Cassation and Justice and the Judicial Inspection Corps have signed protocols with the Romanian intelligence structures- Bucharest sources say. Representatives of the Superior Council of Magistracy signed a protocol with the Romanian Intelligence Service, SRI, in 2012, but it was terminated in 2017. In its turn, the Judicial Inspection Corps signed a similar protocol in 2016, just like the High Court of Cassation. These clarifications are made public in the wake of a scandal which broke out last week, following the publication of a protocol signed in 2009 by the Romanian Intelligence Service and the Office of the Prosecutor General, based on which SRI had provided assistance to prosecutors for seven years.



    MOTION – The simple motion initiated by the National Liberal Party, in opposition, against the Culture Minister, George Ivaşcu, has been rejected today in a plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies with the Romanian Parliament, just a day after the document was debated in a plenary session of Parliament. The Liberals deplore what they call negligence in preparing the events devoted to the 100th anniversary of the Great Union and voice concern about the Government’s inability to properly organise the December 1 celebrations. They also say a public debate meant to find solutions and reconsider a national plan devoted to the Great Union Centennial is needed. In response, the Culture Minister, George Ivaşcu, gave assurances that he is constantly concerned about how to efficiently organise the celebrations devoted to all Romanians.



    CENTRAL BANK — The National Bank of Romania has today decided to maintain the monetary policy interest rate at 2.25%, against the expectations of most analysts, who anticipated an increase in figures. The central bank has also decided to maintain the earned deposit interest rate at 1.25% per year and the credit interest rate at 3.25% per year. The Board of Directors of the National Bank of Romania has also decided to maintain the current level of the mandatory minimum reserves for liabilities in the national currency, the leu, as well as in hard currency for crediting institutions.



    UNEMPLOYMENT – The unemployment rate in Romania in February stood at 4.6%, the same level as in the previous month, a communiqué issued by the National Institute of Statistics shows. The number of the unemployed stood at 419,000 people in February, lower than in the previous month. In terms of gender, the unemployment rate among men exceeded by 0.8% the rate among women, standing at 4.9% in the case of men, and at 4.1% of women, respectively.



    ENCYCLOPAEDIA — A digital encyclopaedia devoted to outstanding personalities and historical moments which paved the way for the Great Union of December 1918 has been launched in Bucharest. It contains rare photographs, video clips and 3D images featuring significant historical moments. The “Romania 1918” app can be used free of charge and can be downloaded from the web. The encyclopaedia is available in Romanian and English, with a French version being under construction.



    FRENCH RAILWAY NETWORK DISRUPTION — France’s rail traffic has been severely disrupted today, as a wave of strikes against President Emmanuel Macrons labor reforms gets under way. The unions say some of the plans to overhaul the French state railway, SNCF, would allegedly lead to redundancies and limit the current rights of the railway staff. If no solution is found to the issue, the strike might continue until the end of June, with traffic being severely disrupted for more than 30 days. Only one in seven high-speed trains, TGVs, and one in five regional trains will be running today, on an average.

  • The Week in Review (2-8.05.2016)

    The Week in Review (2-8.05.2016)

    The local elections campaign has officially begun in Romania



    The campaign for the local elections due on 5th of June officially began in Romania on the 6th of May. This will be the first election test for political parties this year. The campaign ends on the 4th of June, and mayors will be elected in one round of voting. Competing are mainstream parties such as the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, the National Union for the Progress of Romania and the People’s Movement Party, as well as newly created parties, given that under a new law regulating political parties, starting in 2015, a party may be created with only 3 members. This is the third time in Romania’s post-communist history that a technocratic government is organising the elections, after Theodor Stolojan’s government in 1991-1992 and Mugur Isarescu’s government in 1999-2000. The voting will be held at more than 18,000 polling stations. The country’s interior minister Petre Toba says preparations for the elections are on schedule.



    The healthcare sector again in the spotlight.



    Prime minister Dacian Ciolos has asked the health minister Patriciu Achimas Cadariu to find a solution as soon as possible to grant authorisation to a lab able to test the disinfectants used in hospitals, the government’s spokesman Dan Suciu has announced. He said it was the responsibility of the ministry and, implicitly, that of the government, to ensure the decent functioning of the Romanian healthcare system. Controls have been carried out in hospitals following revelations in the media that the disinfectants provided by the main supplier of disinfectants for Romanian hospitals have a significantly lower concentration than that indicated on the label. Checks conducted in 300 hospitals have shown, however, that in 95% of the cases the disinfectants used by doctors and nurses are efficient. The health minister has given assurances that patients are safe. In a report drawn up in 2014 by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Romania was in the top position in a ranking measuring the resistance to treatment of the bacteria found in hospitals.



    Romania has a new minister of culture.



    Finding a solution to the situation at the Bucharest Opera and protecting the national heritage are two of the priorities of the new minister of culture, Corina Suteu. She also said she would continue dialogue with the independent sector and civil society and focus on public cultural institutions and on improving the legislation. Attending Suteu’s swearing-in ceremony, president Klaus Iohannis told the new minister that she was taking over the ministry at a difficult time and amid high expectations. Corina Suteu replaces Vlad Alexandrescu, who stepped down at the prime minister’s request following criticism over his handling of the scandal at the Opera, where three directors were replaced within just one month. Corina Suteu previously worked as a secretary of state in the ministry of culture and as a director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York.



    Decisions within the Social Democratic Party.



    The revocation of Valeriu Zgonea as speaker of the Chamber of Deputies has been postponed and will be discussed at the next sitting. Zgonea says the move is illegal and accuses the Social Democrats of wanting the position for their own personal and group interests. Valeriu Zgonea was earlier excluded from the Social Democratic Party soon after he criticised the party’s leader, Liviu Dragnea. The latter refused to resign from the party despite receiving a 2-year suspended sentence for election fraud committed during the 2012 referendum on the impeachment of president Traian Basescu.



    The debt discharge law comes into effect on 13th of May.



    President Klaus Iohannis has signed the debt discharge law, after previously sending it back to Parliament to be re-discussed. People who have taken out mortgage loans below 250,000 euros and who can prove they can no longer afford to pay their rates may ask the bank to take over their homes and write off their debts. Tens of thousands of Romanians have collected overdue rates on their mortgages and many are facing foreclosure, as have people who have taken out personal loans using their homes as collateral. According to figures released by the National Bank, there are currently 300,000 families who have taken out a mortgage loan. The debt discharge law does not apply to persons who have bought their homes using the First Home government scheme. Several banks have already increased the amount of the required down-payment for mortgage loans.



    European commissioner Corina Cretu travels to Romania.



    On a visit to Romania, the European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Cretu has warned that Bucharest must step up its absorption of European funds, given that not a single euro of the money allocated for 2014-2020 period has been spent. The commissioner is also concerned about the absorption of cohesion funds allocated to Romanian cities, whose absorption deadline has been extended by June. This is the first time in the history of the European Union that some of its budget will be managed by the cities themselves, said Corina Cretu. According to the deputy Prime Minister Vasile Dancu, the government is working on the simplification of procedures for the absorption of European funds, saying Romania’s absorption rate may skyrocket in the coming years.

  • May 2, 2016

    May 2, 2016

    Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Christians, which make up the religious majority in Romania, celebrate as of today the Bright Week, the first week after Easter, when light is seen as the symbol of the Resurrection of Christ. In churches, on the second day of Easter, the same religious service is celebrated as the one on Resurrection night.



    On the first day of Easter President Klaus Iohannis visited the Romanian troops deployed in Afghanistan, and told them that their presence in this conflict zone is Bucharests firm answer to NATOs request to ensure the security and stability of this country. The President also discussed the NATO summit due in two months time in Warsaw, where Romania will plead for a strengthened presence of the Alliance in Romania, particularly on the western coast of the Black Sea. President Klaus Iohannis also had a meeting with Brigadier General Antonio Aguto, head of the Train, Advise, Assist Command – South in Afghanistan. Their talks highlighted the excellent cooperation between the Romanian and American troops.



    The Prime Minister of Romania, Dacian Cioloş, will submit to President Klaus Iohannis on Tuesday a request to discharge Vlad Alexandrescu as Culture Minister and a nomination for his replacement. The dismissal comes against the backdrop of a scandal at the Romanian Opera House in Bucharest, triggered by discontent with the successive appointments for the director post as well as with the substantial imbalances between the salaries paid to the Romanian and the foreign dancers. Protests led to the cancellation of three shows, and PM Ciolos asked for Vlad Alexandrescus resignation. In messages posted on Facebook or published in the media, Vlad Alexandrescu says he was forced out because he upset various interest groups. The head of government said he had not been informed of the problems Vlad Alexandrescu claimed to have been facing and promised he would urge the new minister to carry on the reforms initiated by Alexandrescu.



    The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, has said the officials convened in Geneva are getting closer to a consensus with respect to renewing the truce deal in Syria, particularly around the town of Aleppo, the BBC reports. Kerry had talks with Arab and UN officials about ways to reach a ceasefire in Aleppo, where the situation threatens to lead to a complete failure of the peace efforts. The UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura had called on the US and Russia to salvage the ceasefire agreement. According to BBC, the US Secretary of State will also have to find a way to bring the representatives of the Syrian opposition to the negotiations table in Geneva.



    The football club Astra from Giurgiu, in the south of the country, is virtually Romanias football champion, for the first time in its history. Mathematically, Astra can no longer be caught up with by the runner-up, the defending champions Steaua Bucharest, regardless of the results of the last round in the League One play offs. The owner of Astra is Ioan Niculae, one of the richest and most controversial Romanian businessmen. He is serving time after having been sentenced for the illegal financing of a politician in the 2009 presidential election campaign.



    The Romanian tennis players Patricia Ţig and Irina Begu are playing today in the second round of the WTA Premier tournament in Madrid, which has nearly 4.8 million US dollars in prize money. Ţig is facing the American Sloane Stephens and Begu takes on one of the tournament top seeds, Spains Garbine Muguruza. Also qualified in the second round of the Madrid tournament are two other Romanians, Simona Halep, seed no. 6, and Sorana Carstea. Halep played the final of the Madrid tournament in 2014, when she lost to Russias Maria Sharapova.

  • April 27, 2016 UPDATE

    April 27, 2016 UPDATE

    Until May 1st, candidacies for the local elections of June 5th in Romania can be contested. The deadline for political parties, election alliances, ethnic minority organisations and independents to submit their candidacies was Tuesday. The election campaign begins on May 6th and is due to end on June 4th. This is the third time since the fall of the communist regime when a technocratic government has organized elections, after those organised by the Theodor Stolojan Cabinet in 1991 – 1992 and the Mugur Isarescu Government in 1999-2000.




    Freedom House Romania released a report on the recovery of losses and seizure of the proceeds of crimes. The NGO says that only one-third of the losses are subject to seizure or lien orders. The report also quotes a provisional assessment by the National Fiscal Administration Agency (ANAF) according to which all the 20,000 enforceable titles registered in Romania account for more than 1.5 billion euros. According to the report, in November last year, a special department was set up as part of the tax authority to enforce final rulings in criminal cases.




    The Romanian Culture Minister, Vlad Alexandrescu, announced his resignation on Wednesday via social media. The decision comes against the background of a scandal at the National Opera House in Bucharest, which has seen open conflicts these past few days between the new management, the conductors Vlad Conta and Tiberiu Soare, and the dancer Johan Kobborg, who was in charge with the institutions ballet company. Vlad Alexandrescu is the third member who left Dacian Ciolos technocratic Cabinet in the past two weeks, after the labour minister Ana Costea and the minister for European funds Aura Raducu. A professor at the University of Bucharest and former ambassador of Romania to Luxembourg, Vlad Alexandrescu was appointed Culture Minister in November 2015.




    In Romania, natural gas prices for household consumers will be cut by an average 1.5% as of May 1, according to the National Energy Regulatory Authority. The decision comes after natural gas distribution tariffs went down. According to the regulator, the price of imported gas will continue to drop and in the third and fourth quarters of this year it will get lower than the price of domestically produced gas, by an average 10%. The national demand at the moment is around 15-16 million cubic metres per day, and imports reach 1.5 million cubic metres.




    The executive committee of the Social Democratic Party, the largest left-wing party in Romania, Wednesday decided to expel Valeriu Zgonea, its executive president and also the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. The Social Democrats will also withdraw their support for Zgonea in Parliament. The decision came after Zgonea demanded the resignation of the Social Democratic leader Liviu Dragnea, who received a suspended sentence on Friday in an election fraud case. The Court ruled that in 2012, Dragnea, as secretary general of the Social Democratic Party, used a variety of methods to illegally get people to vote in a referendum on the impeachment of the former right-wing president, Traian Băsescu. The referendum eventually failed for lack of quorum.



    The Chinese capital city Beijing Wednesday hosted the second edition of a conference entitled Media 2020 staged jointly by Radio Romania and the Chinese national radio station. The conference was a unique debate platform for the 300 representatives of major audio-visual companies from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, America and Australia attending. High on the agenda were talks on implementing the UHDTV systems and the way in which new technologies can help radio stations, which cannot rely on images, to improve the coverage of events around the world. The way in which the digitization of radio stations, journalism and social networking are seen in Asia and Europe, and promoting culture through festivals also represented issues of topical interest for the participants in the Media 2020 conference. The conference ended with a recital entitled “Enescus Violin given by violinist Gabriel Croitoru accompanied by pianist Horia Mihail, at the Concert Hall of the Chinese public radio.