December 10, 2023
A roundup of local and international news.
Newsroom, 10.12.2023, 13:42
BUDGET – The leaders of the ruling coalition in Bucharest are analyzing, today, in a meeting, next year’s draft budget. The meeting has been preceded by talks between the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister on the topic of a government order regarding some fiscal-budgetary provisions for next year. According to official sources, the prime minister wants the draft budget to be made public on Monday, and to be submitted to Parliament for debate on Thursday. The deadline for adoption is December 22nd. According to Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, in 2024 budget will focus on investments, while education will receive the biggest allocation so far.
EVACUATION – Eight of the nine Romanian citizens and their family members evacuated from the Gaza Strip on December 7 arrived in Romania today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reported. The group was evacuated to Egypt through the Rafah crossing and was taken over by representatives of the Romanian embassy in this country. The action was the result of the efforts of the crisis cell, through the Romanian Embassy in Cairo and the Romanian Representation Office in Ramallah. 288 Romanian citizens and their family members have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip so far.
SCHENGEN – Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has announced that Austria has a more flexible position as regards the Schengen area and agrees with air borders to be lifted for Romania. In a Facebook post on Saturday, Ciolacu explained that this meant that Romanians would no longer stay in endless queues when travelling by plane inside the EU. He added that Interior Minister Cătălin Predoiu has been tasked with continuing negotiations with his Austrian counterpart. The Senate Speaker Nicolae Ciucă said in turn that Romanias prospective Schengen area accession is the result of the cooperation of all political forces in the country. He hailed the Austrian authorities’ recent flexibility on this matter and said that a decision is expected at the Justice and Home Affairs Council at the end of this month. According to Austrian public radio and television, cited the local press, checks at the air border could be lifted if certain conditions are met, such as tripling the number of operations undertaken in Bulgaria by the European Border Police Agency FRONTEX and more thorough checks at the Romanian-Bulgarian and Hungarian-Romanian borders.
REFUGEES – At the end of October, over 4,200,000 Ukrainian refugees were on the European Union territory, benefiting temporary protection. Most of them, over 1,200,000, live in Germany, and there are over 960,000 in Poland. More than 142,000 Ukrainian refugees have found shelter in Romania, according to data from the Eurostat. The temporary protection offers the right of residence, access to the labor market and housing, medical and social assistance and guarantees access to education for children.
GAZA – The Israeli army has announced that its offensive in the Gaza Strip is close to reaching its objective, that of destroying Hamas, after more than two months of fighting in which thousands of civilians were killed. According to the Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Galant, the first signs of the dissolution of the Hamas organization have been visible for several days, but it would take a month or two before its final defeat. On the ground, heavy fighting continues in and around the city of Khan Yunis. Israeli planes carried out intense raids in the early hours near the city in the southern Gaza Strip and on the road that connects it to Rafah, on the border with Egypt. It is an area where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled fighting in the north. The Israeli armys chief of staff said its forces had stepped up operations in the south to put pressure on Hamas. On Friday, the United States vetoed a proposed United Nations Security Council demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza. (EE)
