Radio România Internațional

Tag: interference

  • February 22, 2025

    February 22, 2025

     

    ELECTIONS The Central Electoral Bureau for the election of the president of Romania in May was selected on Friday. The Bureau is made up of 5 judges with the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the president and vice-presidents of the Permanent Electoral Authority and one representative of each party in Parliament. Parties, political or electoral alliances, ethnic minority organisations and independent candidates will be able to submit their candidacies by March 15, after which the Central Electoral Bureau is to rule on their validity. Thousands of Romanians, supporters of the independent sovereigntist Călin Georgescu, who came out first in the first election round in December, took to the streets again in Bucharest today to demand that the electoral process be resumed from where it was canceled. The billionaire Elon Musk, an advisor to the US president Donald Trump, Friday night posted a critical message on his social network X (the third this week) about the cancellation of the December elections. The US vice-president J.D. Vance had also previously questioned the cancellation of the elections. Romania’s Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said Bucharest would try to provide clarifications about the situation through all diplomatic channels.

     

    RATING Fitch has sent a clear signal that Romania must carry on its fiscal consolidation measures and restore budgetary balance, in order to improve its fiscal credibility, said finance minister Tanczos Barna after the international financial rating agency announced on Friday that it is keeping Romania in the investment grade category. In a statement, the agency confirmed Romania’s long-term rating at ‘BBB minus’, with a negative outlook. According to Fitch, the rating relies on the country’s EU membership and capital inflows that contribute to public revenues and macro-stability. The gross domestic product per capita and the governance and human development indicators are also higher than in countries in the same rating category, the agency explains. These strengths are overshadowed, however, by a significant deterioration of public finances and a sharp slowdown in economic growth in 2024. Adding to this is a possible adverse effect of political uncertainty. In December last year, Fitch announced that it had downgraded the outlook assigned to Romania from stable to negative. The same announcement came later from Standard & Poor’s.

     

    ENERGY Electricity and natural gas tariffs could be offset in Romania even after April 1, when the current aid scheme is set to expire. The energy ministry has posted for public review a draft act extending the capping period, under which the scheme for electricity is extended until July 1, and for natural gas by one year, until April 1, 2026. The capping extension proposal comes as prices on European electricity and gas exchanges have increased significantly, and also as the low temperatures in Romania this winter entailed a significant increase in consumption. As a result, the line minister Sebastian Burduja announced that the government had decided to protect Romanians and support the competitiveness of Romanian companies. After the energy market was deregulated on January 1, 2021, Romania was among the European countries the most severely affected by record-high electricity and natural gas prices. Thanks to the government’s price capping decisions, households and businesses were protected from excessive prices.

     

    CORRUPTION A company and 2 individuals are prosecuted in a case handled by the Romanian National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), together with investigators from the US Department of Defence, the DNA announced today. The company owned by a Greek national has allegedly bribed a foreign official to get a EUR 9 mln contract to refuel aircraft at the NATO military base in Mihail Kogălniceanu. Two other individuals are suspected of complicity in continuing bribery in connection with an official of a foreign country.

     

    GERMANY Germany holds federal elections on Sunday that are crucial to the country’s future, as the far-right is on the rise and the economy is heading for a third year of recession. The vote comes after the coalition of the Social Democrats, Liberals and Greens led by the Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed late last year. According to polls, the Conservatives are expected to win. With the far-right in second place in the polls, however, analysts say that in order to govern, the Conservatives will have to reach a compromise with the Social Democrats or the Greens, overcoming their differences.

     

    FOOTBALL The Romanian football champions FCSB will face the French team Olympique Lyon in the Europa League round of 16, according to Friday’s draw in Nyon, Switzerland. FCSB will play the first leg at home on March 6, with the return leg scheduled on March 13. FCSB qualified for the round of 16 of the Europa League after outplaying the Greek team PAOK Thessaloniki, coached by the Romanian Răzvan Lucescu. The aggregate score was 4-1, with the Romanians defeating the Greeks 2-1 in the first leg, and 2-0 in Bucharest on Thursday evening. (AMP)

  • February 6, 2025

    February 6, 2025

     

    BUDGET Parliament endorsed on Wednesday evening the draft laws on the state budget and the social security budget for 2025. The budget is based on a 2.5% economic growth forecast and a budget deficit of 7% of GDP. According to the finance minister Tánczos Barna, the conditions are thus met to support development through record-large investment, to ensure the payment of salaries and pensions, to protect vulnerable citizens, and to restore balance in the country’s finances.

     

    GOVERNMENT The coalition government in Bucharest convenes today for the first time after this year’s state budget law has been endorsed. The Cabinet’s agenda includes several investment projects concerning the green transition, worth approx. EUR 18 mln. This year’s priorities under the “Anghel Saligny” Local Development Programme are also being discussed, and a formula for calculating national minimum gross wages based on inflation and labor productivity is to be approved, in line with the relevant European Directive. Since the beginning of the year, minimum gross wages in Romania have stood at approx. EUR 810, and the new formula should ensure predictability in employees’ incomes.

     

    RESTRUCTURING Over 400 administrative posts in Parliament are to be scrapped, after Romania’s Chamber of Deputies approved the reorganisation of its staff on Wednesday. Personnel cuts will be made from the Chamber Speaker’s office and the Permanent Bureau members’ offices, and from various departments and directorates in the institution. According to the Chamber leaders, 240 fewer posts will result in annual savings of about EUR 7 mln. Recently, the Senate also decided to cut almost 200 positions, despite employee protests. The government speaks about the need to lower spending in order to contain the budget deficit, while the opposition complains about a lack of transparency and violation of legal provisions.

     

    PRESIDENT The Young People’s Party (POT), a new entry in the Romanian Parliament, Wednesday evening filed a third request to remove the country’s acting president, Klaus Iohannis, from office. The move comes after the opposition failed to get the previous requests on Parliament’s agenda due to procedural flaws. If all legal procedures are met this time, Parliament will convene for a vote in a joint plenary meeting of the two Chambers. On December 21 last year, president Klaus Iohannis’ second and last five-year presidential term under the Constitution was due to come to an end, but after the presidential elections were cancelled his term was extended until a new head of state is elected.

     

    ELECTIONS The Minister Delegate in charge of European Affairs Benjamin Haddad is on a two-day visit to Bucharest, to express his country’s solidarity with Romania, which is subject to foreign interference, reads a news release issued by the French foreign ministry. The French governmental agency in charge of protection against foreign digital interference, VIGINUM, said in a report quoted by the Radio Romania correspondent in Paris that such moves disrupted the smooth conduct of the presidential elections in Romania at the end of last year. We have more after the news.

     

    The Romanian Government Scholarships Program is now open for applications. Each year, the Romanian Government, through the Ministerul Afacerilor Externe/ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Romania, provides a number of scholarships to citizens from non-EU countries, with good results in education. Applicants can choose from any of the following three study cycles in accredited higher education institutions in Romania: Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree or PhD. Scholarships are NOT awarded in the fields of medicine, dental medicine and pharmacy. The eligibility criteria, documents and detailed information can be found on the Study in Romania platform, using the Apply for MFA Scholarships button https://studyinromania.gov.ro/

    Applications are to be submitted ONLY through the Study in Romania platform at https://scholarships.studyinromania.gov.ro/

    Applications are accepted between 29 January and 12 March, 2025, with the selection results announced around 30 June 2025.

  • The European Commission and protecting domestic elections

    The European Commission and protecting domestic elections

     

    As efforts are building up to influence elections in the Member States, several EU countries, including France, Germany and Romania, have called on the Commission to take measures to protect elections from foreign interference. “Recent incidents require the urgent adoption of joint actions aimed at protecting the upcoming elections in the European Union,” reads a letter signed by 12 member countries.

     

    They warn against the growing threat to the stability and sovereignty of EU members, coming from foreign interference in the election process and public debates. They call on the Commission to use its powers under the Digital Services Act to safeguard electoral processes in the Member States. The document binds social media platforms to moderate and remove harmful content that includes hate speech, racism and xenophobia. According to Reuters, EU diplomats said that the call refers in particular to countries such as Russia and China, but to other actors as well.

     

    In December, the EC launched an investigation targeting the Chinese platform TikTok, suspected of not having taken measures to restrict foreign interference in November’s presidential elections in Romania.

     

    On the other hand, at the end of the General Affairs Council meeting in Brussels, the European Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection, Michael McGrath, stressed the importance of protecting the integrity of elections, in particular from foreign interference.

     

    The EC believes that addressing this issue is an urgent matter, and says it is committed to strengthening Europe’s resilience to foreign threats to democratic processes in member states. In addition, the Commissioner added, the Commission will take into account the cancellation of the presidential elections in Romania when it draws up its 2025 report on the rule of law.

     

    It is also worth noting that the Venice Commission recently published a report on the cancellation of the presidential elections in Romania by the Constitutional Court at the end of last year. Its recommendations are that such a decision should not be based exclusively on classified information, which does not ensure the required transparency, but should indicate precisely the violations and the evidence for them. In addition, the power of the Constitutional Court to invalidate the elections should be limited to exceptional circumstances and clearly regulated, the Commission also says.

     

    Meanwhile, in Bucharest, the government has set the electoral calendar for the forthcoming elections. The first round of the presidential elections in Romania will take place on May 4, 2025, and voting abroad will take place over three days, between May 2 and 4. If no candidate gets more than half of the votes, a second round will be held on May 18, between the top two candidates. (AMP)