April 7, 2023 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 07.04.2023, 20:14

PROTESTS Farmers from 18 Romanian counties took to the streets on Friday,
dissatisfied with the compensation proposed by the European Commission for the
damage caused by the tax-free import of cheap cereals from Ukraine. Farmers
demand that the European Union abandon the special regime applied to imports
from Ukraine, which – in their opinion – seriously disrupts the Romanian
market. Romania’s agriculture minister Petre Daea has pledged compensations for
the affected farmers as soon as possible. The Romanian official also met some
of the farmers who protested in Bucharest. Poland has temporarily ceased its
imports of Ukrainian grains in order to offset their impact upon the local prices
but the transit will continue. The announcement was made on Friday by the new
Polish Agriculture Minister, Robert Telus, who took over after his predecessor had
stepped down amid the farmers’ protests sparked off by the plummeting prices in
cereals. Farmers have also staged protests in Romania’s neighbour country, Bulgaria.

BUDGET The Romanian government is looking for solutions to cover a hole
in the budget of 20 billion lei, so that the deficit does not exceed the target
of 4.4% of the GDP. The leaders of the ruling coalition claim that there are
unjustified expenses in many ministries and state institutions, and the
Ministry of Finance must reduce the waste of public funds. Liberal Prime Minister
Nicolae Ciucă has stressed that salaries or other types of income will not be
cut, but he asked the Minister of Finance, Adrian Câciu, to propose concrete
measures to reduce expenses in the next nine months. The Social Democrat leader
Marcel Ciolacu also spoke about a reform in spending public money, in parallel
with measures to reduce tax evasion. In his opinion, the system of increments
should be eliminated, and the bonuses already earned introduced into the
salary. Adrian Câciu said that the adjustment of budget expenses will not
affect the social and economic packages developed by the coalition, nor the
investments. National Bank specialists consider, on the other hand, that
against the background of the high values ​​of the current account deficit and
the budget deficit, the money from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan
represents an extraordinary opportunity for the economy.

HEALTH Romania’s Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila, says that the
medical system in this country needs sufficient, well-trained staff who can
respond professionally and empathetically to the needs of patients. At the same
time, in his message on the occasion of the World Health Day, on April 7, the
minister said that investments are needed in health – in hospitals, in
specialist clinics or in family doctors’ offices. This year, the motto of the
World Health Day is Health for all! In another move, the Minister
of Health said the number of respiratory illnesses and SARS-COV-2 infections
has started to decrease, and Romania has sufficient stocks of medicines for the
necessary treatments. According to Alexandru Rafila, there were 6,900 cases of
COVID last week, the positivity rate being 10% lower than the previous week.
However, the number of deaths is still quite high, 59.

(bill&MI)