March 29, 2023

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 29.03.2023, 13:55

Education. The Romanian government today plans to
approve the new education bills and submit them to Parliament. The
pre-university education bill has three major goals: to reduce functional illiteracy,
enhance inclusion and fairness and reduce school drop-out rates, while taking
on board the lessons taught by the pandemic and other crisis situations faced
by Romania in recent years. The bill on higher education aims to better anchor Romanian universities within
international communities, including by means of financially-supported mobility
and projects of collaboration between the academic and research sectors. The
new bill seeks to achieve student-focused education, also by involving young
people in the decision-making processes.

Protest. Two Romanian trade union federations have
today staged a protest outside the government headquarters, unhappy with the
salary scheme in this sector. They demand urgent solutions to enhance the
incomes of the auxiliary teaching staff and overtime pay for the teaching and
auxiliary staff. The federations also demand the application of the regulations
on the payment of bonuses for working conditions, saying education employees
are the only category of public employees not to benefit from such bonuses.
Similar protests were held last week around the country. Trade unions say they
are planning a protest rally in Bucharest in May and even warn of a general
strike unless the government finds solutions to the problems of the employees
in the education sector.

Pensions. The Senate has passed a bill on the reform
of special pensions, with 79 MPs voting in favour and 37 against. After intense
discussions, the bill was approved on Tuesday by the specialist committees, who
only accepted the amendments proposed by the parliamentary majority. One of the
changes refers to an additional tax of 15% on the special pensions exceeding
the gross average salary. Also, special pensions can no longer exceed the
incomes obtained before retirement, and beneficiaries cannot receive both a
salary and a pension. The discussions were also attended by trade unions from
the police and the army, who requested that the pensions in these sectors
should not be subject to the law. Around 200,000 people currently benefit from
special pensions, of whom 170,000 are former defence and public order
employees. Romania has 7 categories of special pensions, including those of
magistrates, military and diplomats. Yearly budget expenses connected to the
special pensions amount to some 2.4 billion euros. Former magistrates have the highest pensions,
even amounting to some 3,600 euros a month, ten times more than the average
state pension. Changing this pension system is a requirement laid down in the
National Recovery and Resilience Plan and may lose Romania almost 3 billion
euros of EU funding.

Natural gas. EU energy ministers have decided to extend by another year
the recommendation to cut natural gas use by 15%. The measure was initially
proposed after the start of the war in Ukraine in an attempt to reduce
dependency on Russian gas. According to the Swedish presidency of the EU,
thanks to this recommendation, European gas use dropped by almost 20% from
August to January. The reduction in consumption also contributed to a drop in
prices, said the EU officials.

Football. The Romanian national football side defeated
Belarus 2-1 on the National Arena on Tuesday evening, in Group I of the Euro
2024 qualifiers. Romania now have six points from two matches played, having
also defeated Andorra 2-nil. (CM)