May 25, 2025
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 25.05.2025, 13:55
Government – Negotiations with parliamentary parties to form the future government in Bucharest will officially begin on Tuesday, announced Romania’s president-elect, Nicuşor Dan. He said they intended to form a solid majority in Parliament, including all pro-European parties, which, Dan said, would have a positive impact on the country’s economic and financial development. Dan also stressed that participation in the governing act must be seen as a gesture of responsibility by all pro-European parliamentary parties, given that reducing the budget deficit is a priority for the future executive. Following discussions that the president-elect had with officials from the ministries of Finance and European Funds, about 30 billion lei (almost 6 billion Euros) would be needed to balance the budget for 2025.
Investiture – The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest are meeting on Monday in a solemn session in which the president elect, Nicuşor Dan, will take the oath of office. Invited to the plenary session of Parliament are the former presidents of Romania, members of the interim government, of the Constitutional Court, MEPs, the Custodian of the Crown of Romania, Margareta and Prince Radu, representatives of central public institutions, authorities and institutions under parliamentary control, of European institutions, of religious denominations, as well as ambassadors accredited to Bucharest. We recall that the result of the decisive round of the presidential election of May 18, following which the then mayor of Bucharest, Nicuşor Dan, overtook the leader of the nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians, George Simion, was validated on Thursday by the Constitutional Court of Romania.
Visit – Romania’s president elect is today in Poland, in Warsaw, where he was received by the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Nicuşor Dan will then participate in a march and an electoral rally organized by the mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, the pro-European candidate for the presidency of Poland. In a week’s time, the latter will face the historian Karol Nawrocki, the candidate of the conservative “Law and Order” party, in the second round of the presidential election.
Attack – Russia sent a new wave of drones into the Ukrainian capital last night, killing three people and wounding 10. The drone launches were accompanied by cruise missile strikes in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions of southern Ukraine. It is the second consecutive night of Russian attacks as the two sides engage in a prisoner exchange agreed upon during the talks in Turkey last week. Russia and Ukraine released 390 prisoners each on Friday and another 307 on Saturday, with the rest set to be released today. Meanwhile, Kyiv has said that more than 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of war who have returned home have been repeatedly tortured. Kyiv has also shown images of emaciated Ukrainian soldiers with signs of abuse on their bodies during other prisoner exchanges. Under international conventions, it is illegal to torture or starve prisoners of war. Meanwhile, Russia says it will present its conditions for a ceasefire in Ukraine after the prisoner exchange is completed.
Trade register – The number of companies with foreign participation in the share capital, newly registered in Romania, decreased in the first 4 months of the year, according to data from the National Office of the Trade Register. During the mentioned period, almost 2,100 such entities were established, 9% less than in the same period of 2024. And the subscribed share capital was only 9.7 million dollars, down by over 21% compared to that of companies registered in the period January-April 2024. All in all, there are almost 260,000 companies with foreign participation in Romania. Most investors are from Italy, but the highest value of the share capital belongs to companies from the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Disinformation – The Romanian Interior Ministry (MAI) and the National Directorate of Cyber Security draw attention to the emergence of new false information in the online space, which can mislead people. The MAI specifies that some messages on the internet using the names of state institutions have no real basis and do not represent their official position. The Romanian police do not get involved in political activities and do not support any message of this type, the ministry specifies. The National Directorate of Cyber Security also recalls that deep fake technology uses artificial intelligence to create audio, video or image content that appears authentic. These materials can be used for disinformation, blackmail or manipulation of public opinion. The Directorate recommends that users should verify the source of the material and the context in which it is presented. (LS)
