December 30, 2024
A roundup of local and world news
Newsroom, 30.12.2024, 14:13
GOVERNMENT In their last session this year, the government in Bucharest is working on an emergency ordinance aimed at curbing public expenses in 2025. The project, agreed upon by the leaders of the ruling PSD-PNL-UDMR coalition contains measures such as ceasing employment in state-owned institutions, freezing pensions and salaries of state-employees as well as the cancellation of bonuses and other rewards. According to the ruling coalition, these measures are aimed at cutting budget expenses by 19 billion lei, the equivalent of 4 billion Euros, which accounts for one percent of the GDP. Trade unions, however, have lashed out at the new austerity measures, and threatened with protests. A law on the state budget for the next year is to be adopted by the government in January and sent for Parliament approval in a special sitting.
PRICE HIKES The Romanians will be paying more for petrol and diesel as of January 1, due to the 6% rise in the fuel excises, says a document recently released by the Finance Ministry. A liter of petrol will be 3 eurocents higher and diesel will have almost the same price. Excises for alcohol beverages will also grow by 4.4% as of January 1. Local taxes and duties will also be adjusted to the inflation rate, but the decision in this respect is going to be made by city halls. The General Council in Bucharest has decided to raise these taxes by 10.4%.
ATLAS Romania’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday night said that on December 18, by means of the Romanian ambassador to NATO, it had conveyed its disapproval over the distribution of a geographic atlas comprising maps from the time of the so-called, ‘greater Hungary’. “The atlas has a provoking nature in the context of the strategic partnership between Romania and Hungary and their NATO allies. The Foreign Ministry in Bucharest has thus reiterated the position it has consistently conveyed to the Hungarian authorities, that any declaration and provoking gesture is not going to contribute to the consolidation of the partnership relations between Romania and Hungary. The common history has to remain an object of study for historians” – the diplomacy in Bucharest says. Dismantled at the end of the First World War, the so-called ‘greater Hungary’ included territories occupied by Budapest, which today belong to Romania, Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia.
SURVEY The war in Ukraine, the political crisis and the latest price hikes have been the main concerns of the Romanians in 2024, says an IRES survey. According to data released, one out of four Romanians is dissatisfied with the way they are living at present and a similar percentage was unable to mention a single reason for being happy in 2024. According to the same sources, politicians remain on the last position in a ranking of the most trusted professional categories. Furthermore, more than half of the Romanians believe that the year 2024 was worse than 2023 in terms of politics, the way the country was ruled and also from the economic point of view. More than four out of 10 interviewees believe the event that most negatively impacted Romania in 2024 was the cancellation of the first round of the presidential election under a Constitutional Court ruling. Over 60% believe the move was a bad decision. The survey was conducted by phone over December 17 and 20 on 964 respondents with an error margin of +/- 3.3%.
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