The Ukrainian refugees in Romania will benefit from humanitarian assistance from the Romanian state until March 2024, the Romanian government established through an emergency ordinance. The draft ordinance approved by the Executive provides for the extension of the period for granting this aid from the end of 2023 until March 31, 2024. The amount, conditions and mechanism for granting lump sums have remained unchanged, and the financing will be made from European funds. According to the Romanian government, in June the European Commission launched a call for projects for Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, with funding from the thematic Facility of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund 2021-2027. The total budget allocated by Brussels to this call is 50 million euros, and the deadline is October 13. At the same time, the Commission conditions the submission of calls on the existence of a clearly defined national legislative framework, regarding the method of granting lump sums for the year 2024 as well. Under these conditions, the Romanian government says, it was necessary for Romania to have the legal framework, at the primary level, which would allow the granting of support in the form of lump sums to cover accommodation costs for foreign citizens and stateless persons coming from the armed conflict zone in Ukraine.
The number of requests for extending the right of residence of foreign citizens on the territory of Romania has increased as a result of the increase in the demand for labor force, said the main police inspector Marian State, from the Immigration Service of the Timiş County Police Inspectorate. The main fields in which the applicants work are hotels and restaurants, delivery and constructions. Since the beginning of the year, 640 such requests have been registered from citizens of the European Union, mostly from Italy, Germany and France. Marian State showed that the majority of those who come from the European intra-community space are pensioners who left the country at some point and renounced their Romanian citizenship, and now they want to regain it or (renounced it) after marriage. In addition to these, there are also about 2,000 students. In the first nine months of this year, around 4,500 residence permits for various purposes and 1,280 employment permits were issued at the Timiş Immigration Service, in western Romania. Most applicants for residence permits come from Nepal (915), Sri Lanka (595), Serbia (391), the Republic of Moldova (373) and India (235). However, 529 requests were rejected and in 96 cases, return decisions were issued with a deadline for voluntary departure from the territory of Romania in 15 or 30 days for cases of stay and refusal to extend the right of stay as a result of its cancellation or at request. At the same time, 80 foreigners were detected in illegal situations and were fined over 89,000 lei. Last but not least, 484 escorted return decisions were issued following the completion of the asylum procedure and the risk of avoidance.
The labor force deficit in Romania could reach 224,000 people in 2026, in the absence of immediate measures, compared to an estimated level of 145,000 people in 2022, said Alex Milcev, a member of the Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania. Milkev said that this is an extremely conservative figure and that it can easily reach 500,000 or even 600,000 people missing from the labor market. “The labor force deficit in Romania is large and significantly affects the ability of the national economy to grow in the future”, the AmCham official said. He presented the data of an analysis of the economic impact of the labor shortage in Romania, carried out by PwC. According to the report, the economic impact of the labor force shortage, for the year 2022, defined as the loss of productivity, is estimated at 4.4 billion euros or the equivalent of 10% of last years GDP growth. This amount, says Alex Milcev, will double by 2026 and will reach 9.5 billion euros, in the absence of certain measures. He emphasized, however, that a quick remedy would be to attract more labor force from abroad, especially from outside the European Union. (LS)