Radio România Internațional

Tag: growth rate

  • January 6-12, 2019

    January 6-12, 2019

    Romania officially takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union


    On January 10th, Romania officially took over for the first time the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, in a ceremony held at the Romanian Athenaeum and attended by Romanian and EU leaders.


    Twelve years since its accession, Romania undertakes a key role at European level, with the stated goal of contributing to the consolidation of a more cohesive, more united and stronger Europe, the Romanian head of state Klaus Iohannis said in his address. Romania will head the Council of the European Union with dignity, PM Viorica Dancila said in her turn, and added that she would like the Union to be more robust, more united and more interconnected at the end of the Romanian term in office.


    The president of the European Council Donald Tusk gave a poignant speech in Romanian. Among others, he said that it was up to Romania to prove whether its politics may be a good example or a harsh warning for a European Union struggling with the rise of populism and nationalism. He also urged Romanians to safeguard the foundations of political civilisation, freedom, integrity, respect for truth in public life, the rule of law and Constitution, in Romania and in Europe.


    Romania takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union at a crucial time, the president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said. He mentioned that the Union would not be complete without Romania, and that Romania also belongs in the Schengen area. I am counting on the energy and unity of the Romanian nation, in order to decide what we must do and what we can do in the months to come, Juncker concluded.


    The launch of the Romanian presidency of the Council of the European Union was celebrated with a concert at the Romanian Athenaeum given by the European Union Orchestra, which performed George Enescus Romanian Rhapsody no 1 and Beethovens Ode to Joy, which has been the anthem of the European Union since 1985.


    On Friday in Bucharest, the European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker had talks with president Klaus Iohannis, PM Viorica Dancila and other Romanian officials. The European officials had meetings with the Romanian Cabinet ministers who will chair working meetings with their EU counterparts in the next 6 months, both in Bucharest and in Brussels.




    Romania chairs first General Affairs Council meeting in Brussels


    The Romanian minister for European affairs George Ciamba took part in Brussels in the General Affairs Council meeting, the first chaired by Romania since the start of its presidency of the Council of the European Union on January 1. Ciamba presented Romanias priorities for its 6-month term in office, highlighting the 4 main directions: Europe of convergence, a safer Europe, Europe – a stronger regional actor, and Europe of shared values.


    Talking about the European context in which Romania holds the rotating presidency, which is marked by a number of complex processes such as Brexit, the negotiations on the next multi-annual financial framework, the European Parliament elections due in May 2019, and the reflection on the future of the Union, Ciamba said that now more than ever the Union needs unity and cohesion.



    Tension between the Presidency and the Government over appointments


    The conflict between the president and the government in Romania carries on. President Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday rejected again, for the 2nd time, the appointment of Adina Florea as chief prosecutor of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) and Anca Jurma, the interim chief prosecutor, announced she no longer wanted an extension of her term, which led the prosecutor general to make a new nomination. Thus he appointed the deputy chief prosecutor of the DNA Calin Nistor as interim chief prosecutor.


    The position remained vacant after Laura Codruta Kovesi was dismissed by a presidential decree issued on July 9, 2018 by president Iohannis who had to enforce a decision of the Constitutional Court.


    Also this week, the PM Viorica Dancila forwarded to president Iohannis the same nominations for the positions of deputy prime minister and minister of regional development and public administration and minister of transports, namely Lia Olguta Vasilescu and Mircea Draghici. According to the PM, the two nominations comply with the conditions stipulated by law and the two persons are compatible with the respective positions.


    On Thursday the Romanian president had sent the PM the motivation explaining the reasons why he had previously rejected the two persons nominated.



    Romanian economy reported very good results in 2018


    Last year Romania reported very good economic results, the PM Viorica Dancila announced in the first government meeting of 2019. She said that in the first 9 months of 2018, Romania reported a 4.2% economic growth rate, two times more than the rate reported by the EU, which was due mainly to industry. The PM also mentioned a drop in the unemployment rate in 2018 as well as an increase in the absorption rate of European funds, of more than 26%.



    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu, Lacramioara Simion)

  • December 13, 2017 UPDATE

    December 13, 2017 UPDATE

    KING The coffin with the dead body of Romania’s former sovereign Mihai the 1st arrived in Romania on Wednesday and was further taken to the Peles Castle in Sinaia, southern Romania where officials from Bucharest and from the ex-soviet Romanian-speaking Republic of Moldova presented their condolences. Romanian president Klaus Iohannis, the country’s Prime Minister Mihai Tudose and the speaker of Parliament in the Republic of Moldova Adrian Candu have also signed in the book of condolences. People’s access to the Castle was restricted but many took to the streets to see the funeral procession and bid farewell to Romania’s last king who ruled their country between 1940 and 1947. The king is presently lying in state at the Royal Castle in Bucharest where everybody who wants to pay their respects is expected. King Mihai died in Switzerland at 96 on December 5th and is to be buried in Curtea de Arges, southern Romania, where all the Romanian kings have been interred.




    LAW The government of the Republic of Moldova, an ex-soviet Romanian-speaking state, has endorsed a draft law on changing in the Constitution the name of the country’s official language from Moldovan into Romanian. Under the law, the syntagm ‘the Moldovan language using a Latin alphabet’ has been replaced by ‘the Romanian Language”. The country’s pro-Russia president Igor Dodon has described the decision to change the name of the official language as unacceptable. He has voiced conviction that the amendment will not get Parliament approval.




    SURVEY Roughly 16 thousand Romanian doctors have left the country to work abroad, particularly in EU countries, shows a survey published by the Coalition for the Rights of Migrants and Refugees, a group formed by several Romanian NGOs. According to the survey, Romania is in need of 600 GPs and 4,000 qualified doctors. On the other hand the number of employees in the research & development sector has dropped by 30% in the past 20 years. The survey has been conducted on the migration of highly qualified professionals in three areas: medicine, research & development and IT.




    BUDGET BILL The 2018 state and social security bills were being debated on in the joint budget and finance committees of Romania’s Parliament, with the final vote scheduled for December 21. The budget for 2018 was based on a 5.5% economic growth rate, a 3.1% inflation rate, an average exchange rate of 4.55 lei for the Euro and an increase in the average number of employees by 4.2%. Healthcare, education and investments are the priorities of the government in Bucharest if we look at the amount of funds these areas have been allocated in the 2018 budget bill. The budget bill is contested by the Opposition that has filed almost 4 thousand amendments to it.


  • Romania sees record economic growth rate

    Romania sees record economic growth rate

    Exceeding all expectations, Romania has seen a record growth rate in the April to June period, the highest in the European Union. The 5.7% figure mentioned by Eurostat reflects the positive trend in the first quarter of the year, while the overall economic growth rate in the first six months of the year being almost 6% higher compared with the same period last year.



    Figures also show that, compared with the first quarter, in the second, Romania’s economy grew by 1.6%, which makes it the second highest growth rate in the European Union after Sweden, whose economy grew by 1.7% from one quarter to the next. The growth of the Romanian economy is also higher than the EU and eurozone average.



    The figures published by Eurostat are similar to those announced earlier by the National Institute for Statistics in Bucharest. The country’s economy has thus grown for the 8th consecutive quarter. Analysts say the economic growth seen recently is largely based on consumption, but that industrial activity has also seen positive dynamics. Andrei Radulescu, an economic expert and the chief economist of a large bank in Romania has explained in an interview on Radio Romania:



    Andrei Radulescu: “Consumption has been boosted by recent salary increases on the one hand, and on the low level of financing costs and the dynamics of lending in the national currency, on the other. However, we also note a weaker contribution of investments to the dynamics of the economy in the first six months of the year.”



    In the medium-run, Andrei Radulescu expects an accumulation of risks to financial macro-stability resulting in particular from the deterioration of the international competitiveness of the Romanian economy and the high level of the budget deficit, which should not be higher than 3% of the GDP.



    According to Prime Minister Mihai Tudose, the results confirm that Romania is on a positive trend. Ludovic Orban, the leader of the Liberal Party, the main opposition party in Romania, says, however, that the current Social Democratic government is compromising the country’s medium and long run chances for development.



    He says the government shows amateurism and improvisation, proposing laws that destroy investments, the economic initiative and the movement of money. He cited as an example the fact that after the uncertainty about the turnover tax, the solidarity tax, the nationalisation of the second pillar of pensions and the household tax, the government now wants to reintroduce an excise on fuel to patch up the state budget.


  • Romania, Record-High Economic Growth

    Romania, Record-High Economic Growth

    According to the National Statistics Institute, in the first quarter of the year Romania had a 5.7% economic growth rate compared to the corresponding period of last year, and the Government expects a 5.2% rate for the entire year. The first quarter of 2017 was the 7th consecutive one to report growth.



    The figure exceeds the level on which the Cabinet has based the state budget for this year, and which has been seen by many as optimistic. The growth announced by the national authorities has been confirmed by the European statistics bureau, the Eurostat, which says Romania had the highest growth rate in the EU, namely 5.6%.



    Economist Aurelian Dochia says that, although the figures only concern the first three months of the year, the Romanian economy is significantly more likely to perform as the Government expected. He warns however about the sustainability of this growth indicator:



    Aurelian Dochia: “Sometimes there are significant differences between the preliminary figures and the final ones, and this happens everywhere in the world. Beyond this, however, there is no doubt that the economic performance for the first quarter is above expectations, even above the Government’s expectations, which everybody had dismissed as too optimistic. Still, we should not be blinded by excessive enthusiasm, we are only talking about the first 3 months of the year. We shall see whether and to what extent the dynamics will be maintained in the next three quarters. The growth rate is rather unlikely to stay at 5.7%, but it is becoming increasingly possible for the 5.2% figure that the Government used in planning the public budget for this year to be confirmed.”



    The Fiscal Council however warns that the GDP growth has been fuelled primarily by consumption. PM Sorin Grindeanu says this performance is a confirmation of the economic measures taken by the Government, as well as the consequence of enhanced confidence from the business environment in the measures announced for the forthcoming period.



    According to the Cabinet, the growth rate in the first quarter has been heralded by other positive developments in the economy. For instance, exports have reached an all-time high of 5.7 billion euros in March, and in the first 4 months of the year over 100,000 new stable jobs were created. The industrial output also sees substantial increases, while unemployment is at its lowest since 1989.


  • June 7, 2016

    June 7, 2016

    Local elections – The leftist Social Democratic Party won over 37% of the vote for city halls, local and county councils, according to the figures released with 97% of the vote count completed. Next come the National Liberal Party, with over 32%, and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the Peoples Movement Party. Bucharest has for the first time in history a woman as mayor general, the Social-Democratic Senator Gabriela Vranceanu-Firea. The Social Democrats jointly with the National Union for the Progress of Romania also won the 6 Bucharest district mayor seats, and over 41% of the votes for the Bucharest General Council. Second-ranking in the vote for the General Council was the Save Bucharest Union, an NGO recently turned into a party. Nation-wide, the Social Democrats have council majority in 14 out of the 41 counties, and in 11 other counties they will join forces with ALDE to make up the majority. The Liberals claim that in spite of the failure in Bucharest, at national level they had the best score since 1990. The local elections were a major test ahead of the parliamentary election due this autumn.



    Presidency – The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, currently on the second day of his official visit to Luxembourg, has meetings today with Grand Duke Henri, with PM Xavier Bettel and other senior officials. Yesterday, Klaus Iohannis pleaded for strengthening the bilateral cooperation between Romania and Luxembourg, and mentioned that in 2007 Luxembourg and Sibiu were European capitals of culture, and the long-term effect of that programme for Sibiu, the Presidents home town, is still very visible in areas like economy, infrastructure, tourism and society. The preparations for the NATO Summit due in July in Warsaw, as well as the challenges facing the European Union are also on the agenda of the talks in Luxemburg.




    Protests – Several thousand Romanian farmers are today protesting in front of the Parliament Palace over delays in the payment of farming subsidies and the postponement of key laws for the sector. The Romanian producers demand the regulation of taxation, claiming they are subject to abuse from tax authorities. They also want that sales of farming land to foreign citizens be immediately stopped and clear by-laws on important laws such as the ones on foodstuff labelling, hunting and the sale of Romanian products in supermarkets.




    Economy – Romania reported the highest economic growth rate of the 28 EU member states in the first quarter of the year, according to an estimate released on Tuesday by the European Statistics Office, Eurostat. Romanias GDP went up 1.6% in Q1 compared to the previous 3 months, whereas the rate across the Union was 0.5%, similar to the one in the previous quarter. The highest growth rates after Romania were reported in Cyprus, Spain, Lithuania, Austria, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Germany.




    Migration – The European Commission is launching in Strasbourg today a new action plan on migration, which will focus on a new form of cooperation with the African countries that migrants leave. Under the plan, the EU is to provide African and Middle Eastern countries with 8 billion euro in aid, which might be raised to 60 billion euro through contributions from Member States and the private sector. Another key point of the EC plan is the readmission of economic migrants to their home countries. The migration crisis remains a major issue for a large part of Europe. The Visegrad Group countries (the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary) also approach the issue at the highest level, during a meeting these days in Prague.




    Car bomb – Seven policemen and 4 civilians were killed and 36 other wounded today in a car bomb attack downtown Istanbul, the governor of this Turkish city announced. A car bomb targeting a police vehicle went off near the old part of the city, a major attraction for tourists. The attack has not been claimed yet, but authorities suspect Kurdish militants were behind it, the BBC says. Reuters mentions that this year violence has escalated in Turkey, with attacks perpetrated by the Kurdish separatists and the Islamic State group killing hundreds of people.




    Police cooperation – 20 Romanian police troops are taking part in a new international mission in France. Until August 26, they will provide support and assistance to the French police in investigating cases that involve Romanian citizens. This is the third mission of this kind for the Romanian police. In France, during the same period, nine gendarmes will help maintain public order for the Romanian supporters attending the European Football Championship held between June 10 and July 10. The tournament starts on Friday in Paris with a match pitting France against Romania. In 2010, the Romanian and French Interior Ministries signed a partnership that allows for the deployment of Romanian officers to French police and gendarme units in order to efficiently fight crime in that country.




    Military exercise – Poland is hosting as of today a large scale military exercise, the largest in that country in 25 years. Troops from 19 NATO countries and 4 partner states are taking part, including a unit from Romania. The exercise, dubbed “Anaconda 16, takes place a month ahead of the NATO Summit in Warsaw. The ground training is designed to test NATOs ability to cope with conventional and unconventional threats and to reinforce the position of the Alliances eastern flank. Meanwhile, in Cincu, in central Romania, American, British and Romanian troops take part until June 18 in the multi-national exercise SARMIS-16. The 1,200 servicemen from the Romanian Ground Forces and Romanian Air Forces aircraft will be joined by 150 British and 200 US troops.

  • November 13, 2015

    November 13, 2015

    The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, emphasised the need for further efforts and better cooperation between EU member states, towards more efficient control of the Unions external borders. The statement was made in Malta, where Iohannis attended the EU – Africa summit on migration and an informal meeting of the European Council. According to a news release issued by the Presidential Administration, the informal meeting focused on the measures already decided at a European level with respect to migration, with a view to strengthening cooperation with third countries, particularly Turkey, and to improving the security of the EU foreign borders.



    The PM designate of Romania, Dacian Cioloş, has announced that by the end of the week he will make public the membership of his Cabinet. Before that, however, he will have a new round of consultations with the parliamentary parties. After the first talks, the National Liberal Party, the National Union for the Progress of Romania and the group of national minorities in Parliament announced their unconditional support for the new government. The Social Democrats, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians however are waiting to see the list of new ministers and the government programme. According to the Senate Speaker, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, a vote is scheduled for next week for the validation of the new cabinet.



    Two weeks after the tragedy that hit the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest, the death toll is 55. More than 60 patients are still in hospitals in Bucharest, while 30 others receive care abroad. The tragedy took place during a rock concert attended by several hundred people. During the fireworks show, a support pillar caught fire, and the flames spread quickly across the ceiling. Many of the victims suffered burn injuries, but one of the causes of the large number of deaths is the inhalation of the deadly mix of toxic gases in the smoke, doctors said.



    The Romanian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the double suicide attack in Beirut that killed more than 40 people on Thursday. The Foreign Ministry reiterated its support for the peace, stability and unity of Lebanon, as well as the importance of carrying on the joint efforts to fight terrorism. The attack was claimed by the IS group. According to the BBC, it is the deadliest attack since the end of the civil war in that country. The two bombings took place in the south of the Lebanese capital city, where the attackers detonated their explosive vests in busy areas as believers were coming out of mosques. This was the first attack in the last 12 months to target a Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon, in a period when the group, backed by Iran, strengthened its involvement in the war in neighbouring Syria.



    Romanias GDP rose by 1.4% in the third quarter compared to the previous three months, and by 3.6% compared to the third quarter of last year, according to data released today by the National Statistics Institute. The Romanian economy grew by 3.7% in the first 9 months of the year, since 2014. Early this month, the European Commission upgraded its estimates regarding Romanias economic growth rate in 2015 to 3.5%, as opposed to the 2.8% estimated in May. According to the EC, Romanias GDP is expected to increase by 4.1% in 2016 and 3.6% in 2017, thanks to an increase in consumption prompted by fiscal relaxation measures.



    The ATP World Tour Finals begins on Sunday in London, with the 2015 seasons top 8 players and 8 top teams in the doubles taking part. For the first time, two Romanian players take part in the doubles competition. Horia Tecău will play together with the Dutch Jean-Julien Rojer, and Florin Mergea with Indias Rohan Bopanna. Tecău and Rojer play in Group B, against Seed No. 3 Ivan Dodig/Marcelo Melo, No. 6 Pierre-Hugues Herbert/Nicolas Mahut and No. 7 Marcin Matkowski/Nenad Zimonjici. Mergea and Bopanna play in Group A, and will be facing Mike Bryan/Bob Bryan (USA), Jamie Murray/John Peers (UK/Australia) and Simone Bolelli/Fabio Fognini (Italy). World leader Novak Djokovic is also the No 1 seed in the tournament which has 7 million USD in prize money.


    (translation by Ana-Maria Popescu)