July 8, 2019
A roundup of domestic and international news.
Newsroom, 08.07.2019, 14:00
GDP — Romania’s GDP went up by 1.3% in real terms in the first quarter of the year as against the last quarter of 2018 and is by 5% bigger as compared with the same period of last year, according to provisional data made public on Monday by the National Institute of Statistics. Romanian authorities estimate a 5.5% increase in Romania’s economy this year, while international financial institutions have put it at under 4% – the European Commission at 3.3%, the IMF at 3.1%, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development at 3.2% and the World Bank at 3.6%. On the other hand, the net medium salary stood around 660 in May, down against the month before. The IT and cloth manufacturing sectors reported the biggest salaries.
Election – Greeces centre-right opposition party New Democracy has won the country’s snap general election and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras admitted defeat to his rival, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. According to estimates, the New Democracy won an outright majority. Outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker congratulated Kyriakos Mitsotakis on his “clear victory”. The elections were called by Prime Minister Tsipras, who swept to power in 2015, after being defeated in the local and European votes in May.
Protest – Around 100 people staged a protest on Sunday in Bucharest against the adoption by the government formed by the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats of the new administrative code by emergency order. Protesters say the order was issued under pressure from the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the neighboring Hungary and that it is “an act of national betrayal”. They claim the code leads to the dissolution of the authority of the state in areas of the country with a small ethnic Romanian population and facilitates autonomy on ethnic grounds, a goal publicly stated by the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania. The Hungarians represent the largest ethnic minority in Romania, accounting for 6% of the population. Earlier, however, the code had come under harsh criticism from Hungarian officials and the Union, who said it diminishes the rights of the minorities and hinders the decentralization process. President Klaus Iohannis believes the adoption of the document by emergency order is an attack on the entire administrative system in Romania. The Save Romania Union, in opposition, says the code will deteriorate even further the administrative process at a local level. The Social Democrat deputy prime minister Daniel Suciu says the new code is not perfect, but that it will be improved in Parliament.
Neversea – The Neversea music festival, the biggest of its kind staged on a beach in Europe, that brought together an impressive number of music lovers to the Romanian Black Sea coast, has come to an end. The line-up featured 200 musicians. The event, which is in its third year, that began on Thursday evening, gathered 250,000 Romanian and foreign spectators in front of the five stages built for the occasion. The guest list included Afrojack, G-Eazy, Jessy J, DJ Snake, Sean Paul, Lost Frequencies, Kadebostany, Salvatore Ganacci and Dub FX. The festivals budget stands at around 9 million Euros.
Tennis – Romanias Simona Halep is today facing the American 15-year old Cori Gauff in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. A former world no. 1 and currently seeded 7th, Halep is the only Romanian player still in competition in the womens singles. In the womens doubles, the all-Romanian pair Monica Niculescu and Irina Begu have reached the quarterfinals where they will face the pair seeded third, Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic and Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan. In the mens doubles, the Romanian-Dutch pair Horia Tecau and Jean-Julien Rojer have also reached the quarterfinals and will meet the Argentine pair Maximo Gonzalez and Horacio Zeballos. (Translated by Elena Enache)
