February 03, 2026
A roundup of domestic and world news
Newsroom, 03.02.2026, 13:55
Visit – The Romanian Foreign Minister Oana Ţoiu is starting a three-day working visit to Washington, where she will participate, on Wednesday, in the first ministerial meeting dedicated to critical minerals, at the invitation of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Romanian Foreign Ministry reports. This meeting aims to strengthen cooperation to ensure secure and diversified supply chains both bilaterally and in the EU-US relationship. According to the Romanian Foreign Ministry, later in the year, proposals for trade partnerships will be discussed within a technical working group at the Romanian government level, to facilitate strategic investments in the field. Strengthening the economic dimension of the Strategic Partnership with the United States and developing opportunities for joint investments are part of the Romanian government’s key objectives, aimed at positioning Romania as a key European actor in the essential field of rare minerals, the Romanian Foreign Ministry also reports. On the other hand, the Health Minister, Alexandru Rogobete, is also paying a three-day official visit to Israel, as part of a delegation led by the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Sorin Grindeanu. His visit is part of Romania’s efforts to expand international cooperation and adopt good practices relevant to the development and digitalization of the healthcare system.
Liberals – In Bucharest, the National Political Bureau of the Liberal Party (PNL) granted, on Monday evening, a vote of confidence to the party’s president, the Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan. He and the Finance Minister, Alexandru Nazare, presented the main directions of an economic recovery package, currently being finalized, structured on two major levels. The first is the reconfiguration of state aid schemes, and the second has a broad fiscal component addressed to micro-enterprises and the entire business environment. The state aid schemes will be reconfigured by launching seven programs, including for mineral resources and critical raw materials, research and development, new technologies and for the defense industry. For several months, the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which is part of the four-party governing coalition alongside the National Liberal Party (PNL), Save Romania Union (USR) and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), has been demanding the adoption of measures to support the economy. These should be adopted simultaneously with a draft reform in public administration either by assuming responsibility or through emergency ordinances.
Economy – Romania’s economic growth in the period 2022-2024 would have been 1.2% lower without the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, shows a study by the National Bank of Romania. According to it, European funds, both those related to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and those from the standard multiannual financial framework, contributed to mitigating the adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and facilitated the economic recovery. The document emphasizes that the implementation of the provisions included in the PNRR was affected, however, by delays reflected in a slow pace of investments and reforms, which led to delays in the transmission of payment requests and subsequently to the renegotiation of the PNRR. The authors of the study mention that, by the end of November last year, Romania had attracted approximately half of the renegotiated allocation of the PNRR, namely 21 billion Euros.
Femicide – In Romania, the bill on preventing and combating femicide and the violence that precedes it was voted on Monday by a large majority in the Senate, the first Chamber to be notified. Last year, almost 60 women were killed, most of them in the context of domestic violence, Save Romania Union (USR) Senator Cynthia Păun pointed out. The new provisions include increasing penalties when violence against women occurs in the presence of minors or in public, and children orphaned as a result of these crimes are recognized as direct victims, who benefit from immediate protection measures. The document adopted by the Senate goes to the Chamber of Deputies for the decisional vote.
Constitutional Court – Two liberal parliamentarians from the ruling coalition in Romania have submitted a bill to Parliament to amend and supplement the Law on the Organization and Functioning of the Constitutional Court (CCR). MP Raluca Turcan has stated that none of the proposed measures affects the independence of the CCR judges in the exercise of their mandate or their irremovability during its duration. According to Turcan, in recent years, the Constitutional Court has lost credibility due to suspicions of conflict of interest, unjustified postponements or repeated absences and boycotts of important decisions. The main measures included in the bill provide for the express establishment of the obligation of the CCR judges to attend the plenary sessions and for sanctions for those who are absent without reason.
Paris – Agnes Ullmann, a Romanian-born microbiologist, is among the 72 women researchers whose names are to be engraved on a frieze on display at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. They will be added to the names of 72 men engraved on the first floor of the building – French scientists, engineers or industrialists – chosen for having brought honor to France between 1789 and 1889. Agnes Ullmann contributed extensively to the development of molecular biology. (LS)
