March 12, 2018 UPDATE

Unionists disgruntled, Minister Pintea says no reasons for strike in public healthcare

Newsroom, 12.03.2018, 19:39

HEALTHCARE – The Romanian Healthcare Minister, Sorina Pintea, said on Monday there are no reasons for a strike, given that incomes in the public healthcare sector did not drop. The statement comes after trade unions in the sector announced a protest going as far as to an all-out strike. Healthcare employees are unhappy with the new pay scheme and ask for a 25% increase in basic salaries concurrently with the scrapping of the 30% ceiling on bonuses. In other news, Healthcare Minister Sorina Pintea announced that within 2 weeks Romania would receive 10,000 doses of immunoglobulin, with further doses expected from Italy and the USA. Bucharest has recently asked for aid from EU and NATO countries to solve the immunoglobulin crisis triggered by last years withdrawal from the Romanian market of the producers that had covered over 80% of the demand. Romania needs 956 kilos of immunoglobulin per year.

PENITENTIARY – The number of prisoners in Romanian penitentiaries is around 22,900, while the system employs some 12,800 special civil servants, the Justice Minister Tudorel Toader told a press conference on Monday. He added that the number of prisoners is decreasing, and so is the number of repeat offenders. However, Bucharest should not wait for the issue of penitentiary overcrowding to get solved through a natural decrease in the number of people sentenced to prison. According to Tudorel Toader, Romania will build 2 new, modern penitentiaries with a capacity of 1,000 prisoners each, and an initial and continuing training centre for penitentiary staff will be set up in Bucharest.

DIPLOMACY – The 3-party meeting organised in Bucharest on Monday and bringing together the foreign ministers of Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, was an opportunity to reaffirm commitment to strengthening the European project, the Romanian FM Teodor Melescanu said. According to the Romanian official, talks have focused on relevant topics, such as the Western Balkans, the Eastern Neighbourhood, the Black Sea region, the Danube region and the Middle East. In turn, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister, Ekaterina Zakharieva, has expressed hopes for Romanias and Bulgarias Schengen accession, a goal supported by Greece, according to its Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias. On the other hand, Minister Teodor Melescanu has announced a 4-party meeting in the forthcoming period, with government officials from Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Serbia taking part. Also this year, a joint Romanian-Bulgarian government meeting will be held, to discuss primarily the interconnection options for the 2 countries.

DEFENCE – The defence ministers of the Bucharest 9 member countries convened in the Romanian capital city on Monday. For 3 days, officials from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, as well as NATO representatives and US State Department officials will be talking about boosting NATOs defence and deterrence posture, particularly on the eastern flank. Other topics include the adjustment of NATOs command structure, the risks and threats coming from the Alliances eastern neighbourhood as well as means to strengthen resilience on the Baltic Sea – Black Sea axis. Romania offered to host a new NATO command centre, but a decision will be made at the Alliances summit due in July in Brussels.

EXERCISE – Nearly 900 Romanian and foreign troops are taking part between March 12 and 23, in DACIAN LANCER 18, a multinational military exercise held in Brasov County, central Romania. The exercise is designed to help assess the Multinational Division Southeast Headquarters in Bucharest. An element of the NATO Force Command structure, the headquarters in Bucharest is a high-readiness command activated in December 2015, and is staffed by military personnel from Romania and 15 other NATO member countries.

MOLDOVA – The 2 largest cities in the Republic of Moldova, the capital Chisinau and the northern city of Balti, will be having early local elections on May 20, under a resolution made by the Central Electoral Commission on Monday. This is seen as a test for this autumns parliamentary election. The mayors of Chisinau and Balti resigned in February. The pro-Russian populist mayor of Balti, Renato Usatyi, has been in Russia for more than a year, and is currently prosecuted in a case involving the murder of a businessman. In Chisinau, the Liberal, pro-Western mayor Dorin Chirtoaca is in turn subject to corruption accusations in a criminal investigation, and was suspended from office in the summer of 2017.

(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)