May 14, 2025 UPDATE
A roundup of local and international news.
Newsroom, 14.05.2025, 20:00
RULING – The European Commission violated transparency rules by refusing to publish messages between President Ursula von der Leyen and the director of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer – the European Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday. (..) Ursula von der Leyen is accused of directly negotiating, without making the messages public, the purchase of anti-COVID vaccines. Specifically, the Commission signed a contract worth 35 billion euros in the spring of 2021, through which Pfizer committed to delivering 1.8 million vaccines to the European Union. The Brussels executive says that all negotiations were conducted with the agreement of the member states. The European Court could require the publication of those messages, but it is not clear whether they still exist.
CREATIVE WEEK – Over 500 events are taking place, between May 14-25, in Iaşi (east), at Romanian Creative Week, the largest event dedicated to creative industries in the European Union. According to the president of the Federation of Creative Industries Employers, Irina Schrotter, the Ministry of Culture has declared the Romanian Creative Week a strategic cultural event. Over the course of 12 days, about 1,000 artists, writers, designers, architects, cultural entrepreneurs and innovators from Romania and abroad bring to the forefront emerging ideas, cross-border collaborations and perspectives on the future of creative industries such as literature, music, film, fashion, visual arts and architecture.
CURRENCY – The Romanian currency (leu) continued to depreciate slightly against the single European currency on Wednesday, when 1 euro was the equivalent of 5 lei and 10 bani. In contrast, the leu gained ground against the US dollar, which is worth just over 4 lei and 53 bani. On the other hand, the National Bank announced that foreign direct investments in Romania decreased by over 30% in the first three months of the year compared to the same period in 2024. Basically, the amount invested was almost 1.7 billion euros in the first quarter of this year, while last year, in the same period, it was about 2.5 billion euros. According to the Trade Register, over 1,500 companies with foreign participation in the share capital were established in Romania in the first three months of 2025, down by 6.5% compared to the similar period in 2024.
BUDGET- The income and expenditure budgets for 2025 of several public institutions were approved, on Wednesday, in a meeting, by the interim Government in Bucharest. The program of events for Heroes’ Day, on May 29, was also established by normative act. This day – traditionally marked by the Christian religious holiday of the Ascension of the Lord – has, according to the law, the status of a national holiday. According to the adopted decision, military and religious ceremonies will be organized at cemeteries and war monuments, as well as at other commemorative sites.
NATO – The Chief of the Defence Staff, General Gheorghiţă Vlad, will participate, on Wednesday and Thursday, in Brussels, in the meeting of the NATO Military Committee and the European Union Military Committee, in the format of the Chiefs of Defence. The agenda of the discussions includes topics of strategic interest, with an emphasis on cooperation, streamlining joint efforts and unitary responses to security challenges. On the sidelines of the meetings, General Gheorghiţă Vlad will hold several meetings with counterparts and officials from NATO and the EU. The Military Committee of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the highest military authority of NATO. The Military Committee of the European Union, the forum responsible for the Common Security and Defence Policy, is made up of the Chiefs of Defence of the member states, who, after harmonising national positions, propose courses of action to ensure European security, the Romanian Defence Ministry said in a press release.
UKRAINE – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would travel to Turkey this week for Russian-Ukrainian talks, only if Vladimir Putin did so as well. The proposal for direct negotiations was launched by the Kremlin leader himself, when he rejected a request for an unconditional ceasefire for 30 days, which was supposed to come into effect on Monday. The request was made by the leaders of France, Great Britain, Germany and Poland, who said they also spoke on behalf of the United States. They also said that if Russia does not accept the ceasefire, tougher sanctions will be imposed on it. On the other hand, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Wednesday in Berlin, at the end of a ministerial meeting on peacekeeping missions, that negotiating a just peace in Ukraine will not be “an easy task.” He gave assurances that the UN would provide the two sides with any support they could agree on, including a peacekeeping mission. (EE)
