Radio România Internațional

Tag: vegetables

  • Romanians will pay less for some staples

    Romanians will pay less for some staples

    The new PSD-PNL government in Bucharest has started to put in place a series of measures aimed at keeping inflation at bay, and reducing its effect on the population as well as trade imbalances. Among the measures announced are those meant to lower the shelf price in some staple foods and bolster the domestic output.



    In order to achieve these goals the Executive intends to put a cap on the trade markup, which means, at least in theory, that suppliers would give up part of the profit they make. Major retailers have agreed in their talks with the government to apply a price cap in 10 staple categories. Weve got their response to our intention to put a cap on the trade markup, which is not going to put pressure on the local producers though, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said.



    Marcel Ciolacu: “We thus have all the necessary conditions to conclude an agreement or a normative act in the next period. And that would mean a guaranteed reduction in the price of some staples such as bread, milk, cheese, meat, eggs, flour, oil, fresh vegetables and fruits. And I would like to make it very clear that this price drop would not put pressure on the Romanian producers.”



    The Council of Competition is to monitor the prices situation and in the following period, the government will be carrying on talks with food producers and suppliers on the aforementioned cap scheme. Possible drawbacks or technical challenges are being analyzed, George Badescu, executive director of the Romanian Association of Big Retailers, told Radio Romania. According to him, we are speaking about a free market, competition, multiple aspects, so that this measure is not supposed to cause imbalances or turmoil on this market. It must yield the desired result, even if it is taking place on a limited period of time.



    “I am glad about this openness of the business environment, which, following our dialogue, has agreed upon a viable, simple and clear mechanism, which together with government measures can lead to a curbed inflation and increase the Romanians purchasing power. The firm commitment assumed is to bringing inflation down to single digits by the end of the year. I believe we can achieve this goal together with the business environment,” Marcel Ciolacu says.



    A similar scheme has already been applied in France, where a major retailer, which has branches in Romania as well, a couple of days ago announced a roughly 10% price cap in 500 staples and other non-food products. Other major French retailers are expected to follow suit.


    (bill)


  • May 8, 2023

    May 8, 2023

    LONDON Thousands of street parties are
    going to take place today in Britain to mark the coronation of King Charles
    lll. The country’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was among those hosting a
    coronation lunch with the guests including Ukrainian families, youth groups and
    US first lady Jill Biden. Churches and local communities are going to stage events
    devoted to this occasion in public gardens and parks. A special concert to be
    held at Windsor Castle will bring together artists like Lionel Richie, Katy
    Perry or the band Take That. Thousands of public buildings will see lasers and light
    projections to celebrate the coronation tonight. King Charles and Queen Camilla
    have conveyed a message of gratitude for the support shown by the Britons
    during the coronation procedures.








    ORDINANCE An emergency ordinance on curbing public spending is to be endorsed
    by the government in Bucharest this week after being assessed by the ruling
    coalition, Romania’s Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca has announced. Finance
    Minister Adrian Câciu is expected to present today the coalition leaders with
    the concrete measures on cutting budget expenses, which also include hiring
    freeze in state institutions after May 15th. In another development,
    the head of the Executive says that no increased taxes will be levied on private
    sector employees. And the same public message was delivered by the leader of
    the co-ruling PSD, Marcel Ciolacu who added that he doesn’t give up on the
    measure of cutting special pensions. The law will be subjected to public
    debates and be approved by the Executive later on.






    CYBERSECURITY As of this week Bucharest will be hosting the headquarters of a
    major EU agency, the European Centre for Cyber Security, which is to protect
    the economy and population from cyber attacks, support research in this field
    and help European enterprises to develop their cyber-security capabilities. The
    aforementioned agency will be cooperating with a network of national centers in
    the EU countries. Romania’s Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca and Roberto Viola, Director-General
    of the European Commission’s Department for Communications Networks, will be
    attending the inauguration event. In December 2020, EU representatives chose Romania
    to host the aforementioned center among the other applicants like Belgium,
    Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, Poland and Lithuania. Bucharest’s trump cards
    included the high-speed Internet it uses, the centre’s exemption from various
    taxes and duties and the fact that this city hadn’t hosted any European agency
    until that time.






    SUBSIDIES
    Romania’s Agriculture
    Minister Petre Daea says that the greengrocers who are still using toxic
    substances will have their subsidies cut. The statement came upon an
    investigation which proved that many farmers put on sale vegetables, which had
    been sprinkled with toxic substances with a concentration up to 8 times higher than
    the limit approved. The minister says the authorities will be monitoring the
    farmers benefitting from support through national programmes for the greenhouse
    cultivation of vegetables so that no more non-compliant vegetables may reach
    the market. The police have conducted many searches in the counties of Buzau
    and Ilfov, in southern Romania, where they found hundreds of containers with
    chemical substances from Turkey whose concentrations proved to be higher than
    those admitted by the EU legislation. The greengrocers used these substances to
    ripen vegetables faster and sell them on the market for higher prices. According
    to police sources, in some cases these toxic vegetables were sold as organic products.




    (bill)

  • Fish on a Bed of Vegetables

    This recipe, fish on a bed of vegetables, applies to any fish that goes well in the oven, blending the aroma of baked fish with the flavor of baked vegetables and of herbs and spices. If you cook fish that are around one pound in weight, about half a kilogram, then this recipe involves four of them. You also need a few potatoes, two or three courgettes or zucchinis, a few tomatoes, one red pepper or capsicum, two onions, two carrots, a bay leaf, olive oil, the juice of one lemon, a cup of wine, thyme, salt and pepper.



    The easiest way to make this is to put all the vegetables, cubed evenly, into an oiled oven dish, making a bed for the fish. Lay the well-cleaned fish on the bed of vegetables. Pour in some tomato juice and water, season to taste, and bake for about 45 minutes, or until the fish is crispy on the outside.



    A more elaborate method is to grill the vegetables. Slice thinly the courgettes and put them on the grill, alongside the whole tomatoes, then red onion, sliced. The rest of the vegetables you can bake in the oven, as described before. In this version, cook the fish separately, with a sauce made of lemon juice, pepper, thyme, bay leaves, a bit of water and salt. Pour this over the fish, then let it bake in the oven for half an hour or until well browned. Towards the end you can add in a cup of wine. Sprinkle periodically the fish with the sauce while baking. Serve with the vegetables on the side, with a garnish of lemon and parsley, and a side of polenta. It goes well with white wine. Enjoy!