May 13, 2016

Prosecutors have indicted Hexi Pharma, the company involved in the hospital desinfectants scandal.

Newsroom, 13.05.2016, 12:00

LAW – In Romania, the debt discharge law has taken effect as of today. Under the new law, people with mortgage loans under 250,000 euros who can prove they can no longer pay their due instalments may request banks to take over their home and erase the debt. Tens of thousands of Romanians have outstanding payments for their house loans and many of them are already subject to foreclosure. Adding to these are people who took out personal loans and pledged their homes as collateral. A growing number of banks have announced, in response to this law, which they oppose, that they have increased the down payment for granting mortgage loans and that they will appeal the law in Court.

STATISTICS – Romania’s economic growth in the first three months of this year stood at 4.3% as against the same period of 2016, according to data made public today by the National Statistics Institute. Also in the first quarter of this year, he country’s GDP went up by 1.6% as compared with the same period of 2015. According to the European Commission’s spring economic forecast, Romania’s economic growth is expected to reach 4.2 percent in 2016 and decelerate to 3.7 percent in 2017.

SUMMIT – Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos are today meeting to discuss about preparations for the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw, due on July 8 and 9. The meeting takes place one day after the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, travelled to Romania for the activation of the anti-ballistic shield in Deveselu, southern Romania. President Iohannis had reiterated the purely defensive purpose of the shield and its role in fulfilling NATO’s underlying mission, namely to ensure the collective defense of its member states.

DESINFECTANTS SCANDAL – Romanian prosecutors have today indicted Hexi Pharma, the company involved in the hospital disinfectants scandal. Also today, investigators conduced searches at the Hexi Pharma headquarters in an attempt to find evidence for the case. The diluted disinfectant scandal started at end-April, after a journalistic investigation revealed that hundreds of public hospitals in Romania have been buying diluted disinfectants from Hexi Pharma for many years. Moreover, the journalists found that authorities had never tested the quality of the disinfectants used in public hospitals and that the only lab that was authorized to carry such tests was also controlled by Hexi Pharma’s owner. The Health Minister, Patriciu Achimas Cadariu resigned, following the scandal.

CANNES – The film “Sieranevada”, directed by Romanian Cristi Puiu, which is competing for the Palme d’Or is, according to the French magazine Le Monde, “a domestic ballet, a symphony of movement”, while the American Variety says that “Puiu is something of a philosopher, who manages to weave a tapestry in which deception and the hopeless search for truth is judged both on the micro level and a more global scale and where disturbances in either sphere ripple out into the world at large.” In 2005, Cristi Puiu won the Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his dark comedy The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. On Sunday, another Romanian production will compete in the Un Certain Regard section – the thriller Dogs, the debut film of director Bogdan Mirica. Romania has five films in this year’s competition, among which Graduation, by the Palme dOr winner Cristian Mungiu (2007). The film explores the challenges of being a parent in Romanian society today.

INDIAN FESTIVAL – Indian food and culture will take over the capital city Bucharest between May 15 and June 30, when the Namaste India, the Indian Culture Festival unfolds. The festival, held under the high patronage of the Indian Embassy in Bucharest, is currently at its 8th edition. The 6-week event will include film screenings, reading sessions, concerts and dance sessions, discussions, language lessons, yoga sessions, exhibitions as well as cooking workshops. All these events will be held in three locations in Bucharest: the Elisabea Theatre, the Elvira Ppescu Cinema and the Dimitrie Gusti Village Museum.

(Translated by Elena Enache)