Radio România Internațional

Tag: payments

June 7, 2022

PNRR – By the end of the year Romania is to receive 10 billion Euros through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the Romanian minister of European investments and projects, Marcel Boloş announced after the meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The first request for payment was submitted to the European Commission on May 31, and the Romanian authorities are preparing to submit the second request for payment worth three billion Euros in the month of October, the minister said. “The capitalization of the 30 billion Euros from the Recovery and Resilience Plan is a coordinated and coherent effort, with well-established landmarks, deadlines and responsibilities for each field. We have proved that we have managed to make this European financing mechanism operational in a short and not at all simple period for Romania and to send the first payment request. The pre-financing received, amounting to 3.7 billion Euros, added to the first payment request already sent to the European Commission, clearly shows that we are on schedule to achieve what we have set out to do” said the PM Nicolae Ciuca.

NATO — The Romanian Defense Minister, Vasile Dîncu, participated, on Monday evening, in the videoconference meeting of the defense ministers from the member states of the “Bucharest Nine — B9” Format, co-organized by Romania and Poland. The talks focused mainly on efforts to strengthen NATOs deterrence and defense posture on the eastern flank, on the adoption of the Alliances new strategic concept, and the evolution of the regional security situation. The meeting was an opportunity to harmonize the stands of B9 defense ministers on issues of common interest, in the run up to the June 16 NATO meeting in Brussels and also to the Alliance summit in Madrid to be held later this month. The Romanian Defense Minister has underlined the relevance of the future B9 Summit, which will be hosted by Romania on June 10, for the coagulation of the positions of the B9 member states, ahead of the future NATO Summit.

Moldova — Romania and the Republic of Moldova (an ex-Soviet country with a majority Romanian-speaking population) will organize a joint session of their parliaments for the first time, the Moldovan Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu said after a meeting in Chisinau with Marcel Ciolacu, the Speaker of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies. Igor Grosu said he was pleased that the first joint meeting of the two countries parliaments would take place in Chisinau, which is a clear sign of support for the current government. Marcel Ciolacu has stated that Romania has always supported the Republic of Moldova and reiterated Bucharests commitment to supporting its integration into the European Union.

London — The British PM Boris Johnson survived the no confidence motion tabled by his own party, the Conservative Party in the British Parliament. Boris Johnsons victory was not a resounding one, with 211 MPs voting for him and 148 against. Reuters notes that Johnson performed worse than his predecessor, Theresa May, who, in turn, survived a no-confidence vote. Even though Boris Johnson has won for the time being, his position is now much more fragile, according to numerous commentators. The current crisis at the top of the British government erupted when the public found out that a number of illegal parties had been organized during the pandemic at the prime ministers residence. In fact, Boris Johnson was fined for these parties, becoming the first head of government in London sanctioned in this way.

Ukraine – The Russian troops continue to intensely attack the Donbas front line, while Russia is becoming increasingly concerned about the prospect of Ukraines receiving long-range missiles from the West. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded that the Western weapons promised to his country should be delivered as soon as possible, saying that the situation will become very difficult for Ukraine if the Russian forces break the front line in the Donbas region. Zelenski says that the Russian troops outnumber the Ukrainian troops, but that the Ukrainian fighters have so far managed to reject their attacks. Heavy fighting is taking place on the streets of Severodonetsk, the last major city in Lugansk province where the Ukrainians still have control. The Russian forces are also intensely attacking the city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk province, and Kharkov in the north. Radio Romania’s correspondent in Ukraine reports that the Russian army uses its favorite tactic which it has previously used both in Ukraine and in other wars it has waged: intense bombing aimed at destroying the opponents positions followed by massive assaults. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians claim to have caused huge losses to their opponents. (LS)

7 June 2022
Growing current account deficit

On Monday the National Bank of Romania made public its regular updates on the countrys foreign debt, current account deficit and foreign investments.

After extensive talks in recent years about the growing governmental debt, the funds borrowed by the state and the uncertainties around how the government is spending the money from the domestic and international markets, the news that in January – July the foreign debt rose by over 6 billion euros only added fuel to the fire.

The countrys foreign debt has reached a total 132 billion euro. If we look at the increase in this figure in 2021 and in 2018, for instance, the difference is striking: 80%. Of the 132 billion euro, the long-term foreign debt accounts for nearly 96 billion, and short-term loans for the remaining 36 billion euro.

On the other hand, the government has not only borrowed from the international market, but also from the domestic one, and central bank data indicate that domestic debt accounts for nearly 50% of the GDP.

Economists argue that the disquieting element is not so much the increase in the foreign debt, but rather the deepening current account deficit in the balance of payments. According to the National Bank, in the first 7 months of the year this deficit reached 9 billion euro, as against 5.3 billion last year. In the first quarter of the year alone, this figure saw the most alarming increase of the past 14 quarters.

Whereas most EU economies are reporting a surplus, in Romania the reverse is true, entailing the deterioration of the trade balance. Consumption is growing, but it relies to an ever larger extent on imports, in the absence of more substantial and more diverse domestic output.

The good news is that foreign investments have gone up this year to 4 billion euro, as against 1.2 billion last year. However, dissatisfaction is being voiced, for instance by the German business community in Romania, who say the current political developments in the country affect German companies confidence that necessary and urgent reforms will actually be implemented.

For example, the subsidies provided by the EU must reach the economy, public administration needs to be more professional and digitised, so that the standards of living may improve substantially. Instead of new problems and uncertainties, companies operating in Romania need all the attention and political and administrative support, German businesspeople also say. (tr. A.M. Popescu)

14 September 2021
Romanian troops in theatres of operations

The daily allowances paid to the Romanian military, gendarmes and police taking part in international missions in theatres of operations or in peacekeeping missions will be updated to reach the same rates as those received by troops from Romanias partner states.

A government resolution in this respect has been initiated by the interior minister Marcel Vela and defence minister Nicolae Ciuca, and endorsed in Mondays Government meeting. The decision was made following talks with the Romanian troops, during a visit to Afghanistan in December.

According to a news release issued by the Interior Ministry, decision-makers have also considered the fact that as of recently the security context in the theatres of operations where Romanian troops are active has changed significantly, and the risks that they are subject to have grown more severe.

Under the new resolution, the per diem rates for military personnel taking part in missions and operations abroad Romania will be based on the risk level in the region where the missions or operations take place, up to a ceiling of 140 euros a day for officers, 130 euros per day for master sergeants and 120 euros per day for privates.

Where the foreign partners or allied structures that coordinate the missions do not cover the payments for the Romanian troops, the expenses will be covered by the Romanian government.

In last years meeting, the Supreme Defence Council approved the deployment of a total 2,100 Romanian Army troops and civilians to foreign missions in 2020. The figure accounts for a 200-people increase compared to the previous year. Over 800 of these will continue to serve in Afghanistan. Another 500 troops will be on stand-by in Romania, and may be deployed on short notice.

In turn, the Interior Ministry approved the participation of nearly 800 staff in international missions.

Romania became a NATO member in March 2004, in the Alliances biggest eastward enlargement round in history. But Romanian troops had already been present in Afghanistan before the accession, and since 2003 nearly 30 Romanian military have been killed there. Others lost their lives in separate international missions.

Since 2017 Romania has been earmarking 2% of its GDP to defence, as stipulated in a National Political Agreement that allowed for an increase in budgetary allocations. The move was aimed at enabling a large-scale military upgrade process which involved the national defence industry, in order to safeguard essential security interests.

(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

21 January 2020
Informal payments in public healthcare

Informal payments to physicians or, as we usually call them, bribes or “envelopes,” have long been a scourge engulfing the public healthcare system. According to an opinion poll run in 2013, over 60% of the Romanians said they had given money or presents to physicians. Of them, some 66% chose to reward healthcare staff of their own volition, whereas 31.4% were asked to make such payments. More than 57% of the interviewees believed giving money to physicians was necessary in order to receive quality care, whereas 42% of them said proper care did not depend on prior informal payments.

It was reluctantly and after long hesitation that the authorities eventually acknowledged this well-known and widespread practice, and only a few years ago did they begin to talk openly about it. At present the Healthcare Ministry sends a feedback form to the patients leaving public hospitals, asking them, among other things, whether they had been asked for undue payments.

A recent independent journalism project, called “Inclusive,” brought together the Healthcare Minister Sorina Pintea, and Florin Chirculescu, head of thoracic surgery with the Bucharest University Hospital, to talk with students and with former and future patients about bribe in hospitals. Admitting that this phenomenon is a fact, the Healthcare Minister believes hospital managers must be aware that it exists, if they are to take measures against it.

Sorina Pintea: “The first to know that this happens is the manager of a hospital. Everybody talks about it, everybody knows about it, but when you ask concrete questions, nobody says anything. For example, I’ve read the latest report based on patient feedback forms. One of the questions we ask people when they go out of hospital is, “Were you asked for money or presents by physicians and nurses?” We received 153 “yes” text messages, versus 4,265 that said “no”. Of the people who submitted the same form online, 400 answered yes, and 13,564 answered no. Another question was whether they were willing to report the bribe requests to the Ministry’s anti-corruption department. There were 120 former patients who texted back “yes”, as opposed to 4,166 who declined, whereas on the website we received 358 affirmative answers and 13,359 negative ones.”

What is it that makes people reluctant to admitting that they do give physicians the infamous envelopes? It may be a sense of complicity to an illegal act, or perhaps the feeling that this is about something for which we have no responsibility… Or, more likely, the idea that in the Romanian public healthcare system, patients and their relatives are victims in several respects: on the one hand, they are the victims of the disease that brings them to hospital, on the other hand, they are the victims of a vicious circle of corruption which started during the communist era, when connections and elaborate survival strategies were the prerequisites of a barely decent life, and which has grown stronger ever since. Public hospitals, more often than not obsolete, under-equipped and hardly up to minimal hygiene standards, only deepen people’s sense of insecurity and the need to counter possible risks by whatever means they can.

But perhaps the prevailing emotion in such situations is fear. And in turn, fear leads to further irrational responses. Eventually, if and when all ends well, people feel they must express their gratitude for the physicians. This blend of fear, uncertainty induced by a low-quality healthcare system and the wish to express some gratitude, fuels the common occurrence of bribe-giving.

But how are things perceived on the other side of the line? What do physicians feel, when they receive these tips? For a long while, the few who talked openly about it blamed it all on the small salaries. Which is not the case anymore, given that healthcare salaries have been substantially increased in recent years. And still, money still changes hands in hospitals. Surgeon Florin Chirculescu admits that he often accepted money, although he never made his services conditional on this.

Florin Chirculescu: “This happened when I was making 2,100 lei per month and mine was the only income in the family. And I was working 80 hours a week. So I was happy about the salary increases, about every pay raise physicians got, because each of them brought me closer to the freedom of saying ‘no’ to bribe and of believing what I say. I must admit that sometimes I turned down such informal payments, although I would have liked and needed them. It is hard to spend all your time in hospital and to live on 2,100 lei.”

Although he admits that when taking the money he felt shame, dr. Chirculescu says he could not resist the temptation, especially when there was a risk of upsetting the “donor”:

Florin Chirculescu: “I didn’t feel ok. I think my ears were burning, this is what I felt. Now, because I have the financial independence that allows me to see this with different eyes, something else happens: people seem disappointed if you turn them down. When you don’t take their money, people think it is because things are not going well for the patient in question. And if this happens in the presence of the patient, it’s even worse. I am not making excuses, it’s just a fact.”

This is why, dr. Florin Chirculescu explains, it is the duty of the healthcare staff to define their relationship with patients within an ethical framework:

Florin Chirculescu: “When a person is ill, they lose much of their freedom, much of their confidence in themselves and in the rest of the world. When they come to the doctor, a power relationship takes shape, with the physician in a power position. If, in this situation, a physician takes advantage of this—and I don’t mean necessarily money, but also ego and vanity—then that physician is a pig.”

Even if salaries have gone up, giving and receiving undue payments in hospitals is an occurrence that will take a while to do away with, Healthcare Minister Sorina Pintea believes:

Sorina Pintea: “I believe this phenomenon will not disappear very soon. If we promote this kind of message, that ‘in this hospital bribery is not accepted’, it may eventually take root in people’s minds. But it will take a while. Making physicians’ salaries public may also help. People know salaries have been raised, but they don’t know exactly how much. Hospitals have to post net incomes on their home pages, not by individual names, but by position and qualifications.”

Putting an end to corruption in the public healthcare system also depends on both patients and physicians being able to refrain from resorting to the dishonorable envelopes.

(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

17 July 2019
September 16, 2015 UPDATE

ROMANIAN PRIORITIES – Romanias President Klaus Iohannis, who attended a joint session of Parliament on Wednesday, expressed his wish for Romania to have a strong and reliable Parliament, an institution which should enjoy the Romanians confidence. Iohannis underlined that in order to reach this goal, Romania should have good quality laws and the legislature should have functional relations with the other structures of power. Romanias president pointed to some existing problems with respect to the quality and coherence of laws, adding that 80% of the Romanians are dissatisfied with a series of clumsy laws. Iohannis criticized the repeated changes made to some key laws, such as the Fiscal Code, the Education Law and the law on the reform of the healthcare system, delivering a pointed warning over the fact that the way laws change has a negative impact on the efficiency of the public systems, eventually undermining peoples confidence in Parliament. Klaus Iohannis stood for a stable, coherent and predictable legislation, also launching a national debate on education. As regards the refugee crisis, Klaus Iohannis expressed Romanias full support for the countries affected by this crisis, saying our country takes action in the spirit of human rights observance. Iohannis pleaded for a realistic approach, based on dialogue and consultations with the EU countries, also openly opposing a bureaucratic approach. Romanias President also said the next steps Romania should further take with respect to the refugee crisis will be agreed upon during Thursdays meeting of the Countrys Supreme Defence Council.

REFUGEE CRISIS – Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic has announced he will meet his Austrian counterpart Werner Faymann on Thursday, for talks on the refugee issue. He has expressed his countrys readiness to receive refugees, most of whom having the intention to reach Germany and the Nordic countries. Some 300 immigrants crossed the border into Croatia, from Serbia, on Tuesday to Wednesday night, the Croatian Interior Ministry has announced. These are the first refugees to take this alternative route, after Hungary closed its border with Serbia. Hundreds of immigrants protested against the closure of the Serbian-Hungarian border, with Hungary using water cannons to spread the protesting refugees. Meanwhile, the flow of migrants on the Hungarian-Austrian border has almost stopped after the enforcement of the new anti-immigration law adopted by Budapest. Reuters quotes Hungarian police sources as saying the number of refugees has been reduced significantly, to several hundred people, as compared to the record high of some 9,400 people registered on Monday.

IMMIGRATION STRATEGY – The Romanian Government on Wednesday endorsed the National Strategy on Immigration for the 2015-2018 period and the Action Plan for the current year. The strategy is aimed at managing more efficiently the phenomenon of immigration and includes general and specific strategic objectives and action guidelines which mirror the policies established at European level and adjusted to national realities. Referring to the Action Plan for 2015, the Government says it represents “a means to establish concrete activities to lead to the setting up of a flexible system to curb the phenomenon of migration which is gaining ground.

MILITARY DRILLS – The “Histria 2015 military drills got underway in several firing grounds across Romania. Some 7,000 employees of the countrys defence, public order and national security institutions took part in the exercise. For the first time ever, live rounds sessions were performed in a firing ground in the western county of Arad, with Europe-based US marines taking part in the exercise. Underlying the joint military undertaking was a complex scenario, tailored for todays security environment, so that Romanian military can accomplish their missions under war conditions and in crisis situations.

FINANCIAL – The European Commission has decided to resume payments to Romania under two programs, “Economic Competitiveness and “Environment, both suspended in late April. Following this decision, around 120 million Euros will be transferred to the Romanian authorities in the ensuing period of time. The European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Cretu, has hailed the efforts made by the Romanian authorities to improve the two programs management and control systems. The European Commission announced in April 2015 that it had found indicators of fraud in the management of the two programs.

MUSIC – The George Enescu International Festival, one of Europes most prestigious classical music festivals continues in Bucharest and in other cultural centres across the country. For the first time ever, a performance tailored for children and youngsters, “Munchhasusen, the Master of Lies was presented to the public during this edition of the festival. The show is a production of the Comic Opera for Children. It was composed by Dan Dediu and stage-directed by Cristian Mihailescu. On Tuesday, the famous violinist David Garrett gave a concert in Bucharest, being accompanied by the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti. Garrett performed George Enescus Ballad for violin and orchestra, a work he also took on concert stages worldwide.

SPORTS – Romanias national rugby team on Wednesday left for England, where it is scheduled to play the World Cup fixtures. Romania joins France, Ireland, Canada and Italy in Group D of the competition that kick-starts on Friday. Also known as the Oak Leaf Knights, the Romanian rugby players have taken part in all the seven previous editions of the World Cup, yet they failed to go past the competitions group stage.

16 September 2015