VISIT Romanian Prime Minister, Marcel Ciolacu, is meeting the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels today. Talks over the National Plan of Recovery and Resilience, a.k.a PNRR, as well as the global and regional security are high on the talks agenda. Bucharest’s objective is to renegotiate with the EU officials some targets in the country’s National Plan of Recovery and Resilience so that Romania may entirely absorb the funds allotted through the European mechanism. In Ciolacu’s opinion, there are a series of issues within the PNRR, which need adjustment to present-day realities. The head of the Executive believes that 2025 and 2026 are decisive years when Romania can entirely benefit from funding in the aforementioned plan.
FOOTBALL Romania’s football champions, FCSB, on Thursday night qualified for the Europa League’s round of 16 after a 4-1 win on aggregate against, PAOK Thessaloniki, a Greek eleven coached by Romanian Razvan Luceascu. FCSB won the first game in Greece 2-1 and also clinched a 2-0 win in Bucharest last night in front of over 50 thousand football fans. FCSB will be playing their first match at home on March 6 and return one a week later either against Olympique Lyon or Eintracht Frankfurt. Lots are being drawn today in Nyon, Switzerland.
THEFT The Dutch police have announced they apprehended a 26 year-old man, who has become the fourth suspect in the theft of the Romanian ancient artefacts from the Drents Museum in Assen. According to police sources, the artefacts haven’t been recovered yet. We recall that on January 25, four extremely valuable golden artefacts part of Romania’s treasure, on display at the Drents Museum, were stolen. The museum was hosting the exhibition entitled “Dacia, the Kingdom of gold and silver”, which was supposed to close a day before the robbery.
JOBS Romania’s Prime Minister, Marcel Ciolacu, on Thursday announced that 18 hundred jobs of public and contract servants from the institutions subordinated and coordinated by the government would be axed. The premier referred to a massive drop in the number of the aforementioned jobs of 13.5%, which translates into the biggest cost-cutting initiative in the history of the Romanian government.
BUDGET The Romanian government has approved a budget of roughly 240 million Euros for the preparation and staging of the presidential election on May 4 and 18. The money comes from the Budget Reserve Funds made available to the government and stipulated in the state budget 2025 – says a communiqué of the Executive. We recall the presidential election will take place in May after a first round held in December was annulled through a Constitutional Court ruling, which invoked interferences in the election process.
RABLA Representatives of the Carmakers Association in Romania have proposed to the authorities a new form of the RABLA programme, which no longer includes the Classical and Plus variants. According to the aforementioned association, ecobonuses of higher value might encourage the population to purchase more electric cars and if ecobonuses are funded from green certificates, their value may become more important than the state budget funds. A lower ecobonus value for electric vehicles, which last year was halved at 5 thousand Euros, has caused a major market slump of roughly 32%.
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