UNITARY PAY LAW On Monday, the Romanian Labour Ministry starts talks with trade unions on the unitary pay system law. The first participants in the discussion will be representatives of the public order and health-care sectors. The line minister Lia Olguta Vasilescu has stated that incomes up to 4,000 lei (888 Euro) will double, those that exceed this cap will increase by 45% and salaries higher than 7,000 lei (approx. 1550 Euro) will be slightly raised. She has also said that the Government is open to any kind of discussions, but it would prefer to not amend the bill. As regards pensions, Lia Olguta Vasilescu has stated that the next raise is due on July 1st, when the pension point will go up to 222 Euro.
USE REPORT Corruption continues to be Romanias biggest problem, reads the US Department of State country report on human rights practices in 2016. According to the report, bribe is a habit well spread across the public sector in Romania, laws are not always effectively implemented, and public officials, including judges, get involved in acts of corruption without being punished. Also, according to the document, immunity held by former and current ministers, who are also members of Parliament, has blocked many judicial investigations. The report also accuses the discrimination of the Roma population, the poor detention conditions and prison overcrowding, as well as the fact that there is too much political bias in the media. Politicians and groups of politicians either own or control many local and national media outlets, and their editorial policies reflect the views of their owners, the report also shows.
EC REPORT The economic situation and the health-care and welfare systems are generating most of the issues facing Romania today, according to the country report drawn up by the European Commission based on Romanians views. Other problems identified by the Romanian citizens are the price rise, inflation and high living costs, as well as unemployment. In the second half of the year 2016, Romanias economic situation was perceived as being good and very good by a quarter of the Romanians. As regards expectations for the next 12 months, Romanians were less optimistic than at the end of 2015, with a quarter of the interviewees saying they expected the economic situation would improve, and 29% believing it would become worse.
ROMANIAN JUSTICE The new Romanian Justice Minister Tudorel Toader has announced that in approximately one month he will submit a bill amending the criminal legislation in keeping with the Constitutional Courts rulings. In an interview on Radio Romania, he said that the bill will be debated and adopted in parliament. Toader says that, as regards abuse of office, there must be a delimitation between contraventional and criminal liability and this can be done only by setting a threshold of the damage. Toader took the office in February, after the serious political crisis triggered by the Governments attempt to amend the criminal codes and grant collective pardon under emergency decrees. The threshold set for abuse of office was the equivalent of some 45,000 Euros. The decision triggered the largest street protests in Romania after the 1989 anti-Communist Revolution so the Government withdrew the decrees, and their author, the then Justice Minister Florin Iordache, resigned.
HEALTH SECTOR More than 14,000 physicians and 28,000 nurses left Romania between 2009-2015, and many of them are now working in different fields, according to the president of the Sanitas Bucharest Federation Viorel Husanu. In an interview to Agerpress news agency, he has stated that in the past two years the physicians exodus abroad has diminished, as they have started to be satisfied with the working conditions in Romania. In the trade union leaders opinion, the fact that many people in the sector are appointed for political reasons, starting with hospital directors and ending with chief of departments or even chief nurses, and the system being underfunded are still the main issues facing the Romanian health-care system. Viorel Husanu does not believe that bribe will disappear completely from the Romanian hospitals, but if incomes go up, the health workers will start giving up this practice.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS COUNCIL On Monday, the Romanian Defence Minister Gabriel Les will attend in Brussels the proceedings of the Foreign Affairs Council. The agenda of the meeting includes current topics and focuses mainly on the implementation of the EU global defence and security strategy and measures to develop the common security and defence policy. The participants will discuss important topics on the European defence agenda, such as the on-going structural cooperation, a coordinated revision of defence, the operational and leadership capability and the EUs commitment to the common security and defence policy.
MOLDOVA The former Governor of the National Bank of Moldova Leonid Talmaci has been placed under temporary arrest for two weeks. He is accused of abuse of office, membership to an organized crime group and abuse of trust. According to prosecutors, quoted by Radio Romania correspondents, the damage stands at some 700,000 Euros. Talmaci was the Governor of the Moldovan Central Bank between 1991 and 2009 and also the one who introduced the national currency, the Moldovan leu. He is seen as close to the current president of the Republic of Moldova, the pro-Russian socialist Igor Dodon, and was arrested just one day after being included in the Presidencys Economic Council.
NATO Some 1500 soldiers and ships from 7 NATO member countries are taking part for a week in a large-scale exercise in the Black Sea. Poseidon 2017 is an exercise organised by the Romanian naval forces and brings for the second time to Constanta, the largest port on the Romanian Black Sea coast, a NATO Mine Countermeasures Group. Soldiers from Poland, Spain, Turkey, Germany, Greece and Bulgaria are taking part in the exercised alongside the Romanian soldiers.
