July 21, 2025 UPDATE

The latest news from RRI

Newsroom, 21.07.2025, 20:00

Visit – The president of Romania Nicușor Dan has received an official invitation to visit the United States from the US president Donald Trump, the president’s national security advisor Cristian Diaconescu announced during an interview on Sunday night. A date has not yet been set for the visit, but preparations are underway, with the help of the foreign ministry. “The two officials had a very good dialogue a month ago, at the NATO summit in The Hague. The invitation was conveyed via formal channels,” Diaconescu said, and explained that the organization of the visit depends on the speed with which the agenda and the access level are set. “If the agenda can be set quickly, president Trump will be very interested in this dialogue,” Diaconescu added, emphasizing Romania’s importance as a strategic player on NATO’s eastern flank. On July 25 and 26, President Nicuşor Dan will be in Austria, where he is scheduled to meet with president Alexander Van der Bellen and chancellor Christian Stocker, and will also attend a business forum. On Friday, the Romanian president made an official visit to Germany.

Budget – The Romanian healthcare system needs an additional budget adjustment of at least 10 billion lei (about 2 billion Euros), the Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said. He added that this amount represented, under the current conditions, “a great pressure” on the state budget. The PM and the Health Minister, Alexandru Rogobete, presented the healthcare reform package on Monday. Bolojan said that the healthcare system had accumulated “big problems” in recent years, and one of the aspects affecting its proper functioning is the accelerated growth of expenses at an unsustainable level. Thus, the government proposes the introduction of evaluation and performance indicators for department heads and hospital managers, the obligation for all public and private hospitals to report the real costs of the services they provide, and if cases of fraud and settlement of fictitious services are identified, the Health House and the Ministry of Health will apply sanctions, the development of a new methodology for evaluating and setting the price of medicines and encouraging private medical insurance. For 2025, the budget allocated to Health is 77 billion lei (approximately 15 billion Euros). Ilie Bolojan says that these expenses are not reflected in the quality of health services provided to citizens, or in the perception and satisfaction of patients.

Eurostat – Romania continues to have the largest budget deficit in the European Union, although the indicator decreased to 7.5% of the GDP in the first three months of the year, from 9.6% in the last quarter of 2024. The downward trend in Romania’s deficit is greater than that of the EU, which decreased by 0.4%. The largest budget deficit, after Romania, continues to be recorded by France, 5.6%, followed by Belgium, with 5.5%. At the opposite pole is Cyprus, which enjoyed a budget surplus of 5.6%. Greece also has a surplus of 4.2%. In terms of the government debt relative to the gross domestic product, the European Union’s trend is upward, from 81% in the last quarter of 2024, to 81.8% in the first quarter of 2025. Romania also has an increase of 1% from 54.8% to 55.8%.

Reform – Representatives of county councils and city halls in Romania discussed with the Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan and the Development Minister Cseke Attila about the expected reform of the administration, part of the second package of measures to reduce the budget deficit. They later had a meeting with the head of the Chamber of Deputies, Sorin Grindeanu, to present their dissatisfaction with these reforms. City hall employees announced that they would protest on Wednesday with a token strike, dissatisfied that they were not consulted on the measures that concern them. They said that a complete cessation of work at the end of this month is not excluded. In turn, the Liberal MP Florin Roman drew attention to the fact that the suspension of payments for some projects under the “Anghel Saligny” program, to modernize local communities through infrastructure investments, would lead to blocking thousands of open works, especially in rural areas. The Prime Minister announced last week that, in the coming period, only projects at an advanced stage will receive funding from the Anghel Saligny program, the others will be postponed and reevaluated in 2026. The PM specified that projects with European funding would be prioritized, especially from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

Football – The Romanian football teams have found out their possible opponents in European competitions following the drawing of lots that took place on Monday in Nyon, Switzerland. Thus, if they get past the North Macedonian team KF Shkendija, the Romanian champions FCSB will meet the winner of the match between the Irish team Shelbourne and the Azerbaijani team Qarabag, in the third preliminary round of the Champions League. If they are eliminated, FCSB will play in the third preliminary round of the Europa League with the loser of the match pitting FC Copenhagen and FC Drita. Then, if they get past the Swiss team FC Lugano, the Romanian Football Cup winner, CFR Cluj, will play in the third preliminary round of the Europa League with the winner of the match between Levski Sofia and Sporting Braga. If they are eliminated, CFR Cluj will play in the third preliminary round of the Conference League with the loser of the match between NK Celje (Slovenia) and AEK Larnaca FC (Cyprus). In the Conference League, Universitatea Craiova will play in the second preliminary round of the competition with FK Sarajevo, and if they win, they will meet the winner of the match between the Maltese team Hibernians Paola and the Slovak team Spartak Trnava. Last but not least, if they defeat FC Ararat-Armenia, Universitatea Cluj will play with the winner of the match between the Kazakh team FK Aktobe and the Czech team Sparta Prague.

CCR – The Constitutional Court of Romania will analyze, on Tuesday, the notification of the nationalist opposition regarding the first package of fiscal-budgetary measures for which the Government has assumed responsibility. After the no confidence motion, submitted by the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), S.O.S. and the Party of Young People (POT), was rejected in Parliament, representatives of the three parties challenged the law at the Constitutional Court. They complain that the Executive abused the procedure of rapid promotion of measures that they claim will seriously affect Romanians with low incomes. The first fiscal package provides, among other things, for an increase in the VAT rates, an increase in excise duties, a cut or reduction in bonuses and a cap on pensions and salaries in the public system.

Defense – The Romanian National Defense Ministry will purchase short-range and very short-range anti-aircraft systems from the Israeli company Rafael, intended for protection against aerial threats, including drones and cruise missiles. The framework agreement was signed on Monday, the value of the purchase being over 2 billion Euros, excluding VAT. According to the Ministry, the framework agreement provides for the signing of three subsequent contracts, through which the missile systems, the related ammunition, as well as a training and education system and a simulation system for the verification and evaluation of the operators of the very short-range systems will be purchased. The framework agreement will run for a period of 7 years, and the first two very short-range systems will be delivered within 3 years of the signing of the first subsequent contract. (LS)