April 21, 2023 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 21.04.2023, 19:46

Spending. The Romanian government will next week unveil a draft
emergency order aimed at increasing the efficiency of public spending. This
will also include other fiscal and budgetary measures, which must not be
perceived as austerity measures, finance minister Adrian Câciu was keen to
stress. Prime minister Nicolae Ciucă said curbing budget spending is needed in
order to keep the budget deficit in check, also stressing that it is not going
to affect investments and salaries. The Romanian official also urged big
taxpayers to pay their dues to the state.

Cereals. Romania will not ban the import of Ukrainian grains
unilaterally and will wait for the European Commission to implement measures
aimed at supporting farmers in Central and Eastern Europe, agriculture minister
Petre Daea said on Friday. He added that Romania and Ukraine will consult
weekly regarding the expected volumes of grain, in an attempt to limit imports.
At the end of a meeting held in Bucharest with his Ukrainian counterpart,
Mykola Solskyi, Petre Daea said Romania stands in solidarity with farmers from
Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia, but the rules must be made together. The
Ukrainian minister thanked him for the sincere and constructive
dialogue and to the Romanian people for the sincere support
he has felt for the past two years. The situation we are in now requires
some very quick decisions, he also said. The two ministers also discussed
the cereal crisis in an online meeting a few days ago, when Petre Daea briefed
his Ukrainian counterpart on the serious situation farmers are facing in
Romania and the measures taken in relation to the transit of Ukrainian cereals.

Defence. The Romanian defence minister Angel Tîlvăr and the chief of defence staff,
general Daniel Petrescu, on Friday attended the 11th
meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group held in Ramstein, Germany.
According to a statement from the Romanian defence ministry, the meeting
reiterated, both on a practical and a conceptual level, the unity of over 50
democratic states and international organisations in their support of Ukraine,
a nation determined to protect its internationally recognised borders in the
face of a brutal and unprovoked invasion. Tîlvăr conveyed Romania’s support for
Ukraine’s right to self-defence and highlighted the need for the international
support for Ukraine to continue as long as necessary. It is now very clear
that the president Putin’s plan to divide us has failed, the Romanian official
is quoted as saying. He also advocated the need to support states in the Black
Sea region like the Republic of Moldova and Georgia who are exposed to hybrid
threats, cyber attacks and propaganda and disinformation attempts by Russia.

Tour. Romanian president Klaus
Iohannis is making an official visit to Chile on Saturday, the first at this
level in the last ten years. The aim of the visit is to boost political
cooperation and economic exchanges, consolidate the sectoral cooperation
between the two countries and encourage interhuman links. Multilateral
cooperation, aspects related to the security environment of the two states,
consolidating democracy in the world, defending human rights and combating
climate change, including education for the environment, are also on the agenda
of the talks. Romania is soon to open, at Universidad de Chile, the first
Romanian language department in Latin America, with the support of the
Institute for the Romanian Language. Iohannis previously travelled to Brazil
and will visit Argentina after Chile.

Festival. The Spotlight Festival is held this weekend in Bucharest.
Entitled the Geometry of the City, this 7th edition features video mapping
performances, light projections and multimedia installations from France,
Austria, Hungary and Romania. The highlights include Neutrino, a light
installation created by the Austrian company Circus Lumineszenz and consisting
of the large scale artistic reproduction of a subatomic particle, and the
Talking Heads installations, which replace the facial muscles with over 4,000
LED bulbs and reproduce a wide range of emotions through light and colour. (CM)