February 3, 2025 UPDATE1
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Newsroom, 03.02.2025, 18:47
Budget – Romania’s 2025 budget bill will enter Parliament’s debate as of Tuesday, and the final vote is expected to take place by the end of the week. The vote is predictable as the parliamentarians of the ruling coalition (PSD-PNL-UDMR) have the majority. However, the document met with much criticism from the opposition parties, which submitted over 1,000 amendments. Adopted by the government at the end of last week, Romania’s budget bill for 2025 is based on an economic growth of 2.5%, an average inflation rate of 4.4% and a deficit of 7% of the GDP. According to the Finance Minister, Tanczos Barna, the budget focuses on investments, with record allocations of 150 billion lei (about 30 billion Euros).
Investigation – The prosecutors from the Directorate for Fighting Organized Crime (DIICOT) carried out, on Monday, dozens of searches in Romania and Monaco, in a case involving fraud with particularly serious consequences, embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion, related to what the press called the Nordis real estate business. The investigations targeted a number of about 70 suspects, natural and legal persons. Among the people interviewed are Laura Vicol, former head of the Legal Commission in the Chamber of Deputies, and Ioana Băsescu, the daughter of the former president of Romania, Traian Băsescu, who was called at the DIICOT headquarters to give explanations regarding her involvement as a notary in the Nordis business. Starting in 2018, three of the suspects allegedly initiated and set up an organized criminal group, which conceived and implemented a complex criminal mechanism, consisting, mainly, in the promotion and development of real estate projects under the cover of several commercial companies, followed by collecting money from clients, misleading buyers during the execution of pre-contracts and sale-purchase contracts. The leaders of the organized criminal group are said to have collected over 957,000,000 lei (over 195 million Euros) from customers as an advance payment within the framework of bilateral sale-purchase promises, respectively sales-purchase agreements.
Defense – Europe must assume greater responsibility for its own defense in order to strengthen our strategic resilience, said President Klaus Iohannis, present, on Monday, in Brussels, at the informal meeting of EU leaders on defense issues. The discussions focused on military capabilities and the European defense industry. President Iohannis evoked, in this sense, the need for adequate financing seen not only as the allocation of more money, but also as the effective use of the already existing tools. Regarding defense, Romania’s president emphasized the need for complementarity between the European Union and NATO. (LS)
