May 25, 2025 UPDATE

The latest news from RRI

Newsroom, 25.05.2025, 20:06

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, Nicuşor Dan, who is in Warsaw, declared that he wanted to work with Rafał Trzaskowski, as President of Poland, for a good collaboration between the two countries and for a stronger European Union. Dan participated in the “March of a Million Hearts” electoral march, organized by the pro-European mayor of Warsaw, a candidate running in the presidential election in Poland. He conveyed to the thousands of Poles present that Romania and Poland share the same vision and the same values, such as democracy, freedom of expression and the rule of law. At the same time, Nicuşor Dan also said that, in the May 18 election, Romanians ‘defeated isolationism and Russian influence’, ‘they chose seriousness, honesty and respect for the law’. Before participating in this rally, Nicuşor Dan was received by the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk.

Ukraine – Russia announced on Sunday that 303 Russian soldiers had been exchanged for the same number of Ukrainian soldiers in the third and final stage of a major prisoner exchange between Kyiv and Moscow. The exchange was agreed on May 16, during the peace talks in Istanbul, Turkey. Thus, between May 23 and 25, the Russian and Ukrainian sides carried out an exchange of 1,000 prisoners each. 390 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers were released on Friday and another 307 on Saturday. Kyiv announced that over 95% of the Ukrainian prisoners of war who returned home were repeatedly tortured. Moreover, on the occasion of other prisoner exchanges, the Ukrainian administration presented images of very weak Ukrainian soldiers with signs of abuse on their bodies. According to international conventions, it is illegal to torture or starve prisoners of war.

Romanians abroad – Romania needs the voice and involvement of Romanians abroad, said the president-elect Nicuşor Dan on the occasion of the Day of Romanians Abroad. He stated that he assumed the mandate to create bridges between the decisions made in Bucharest and the ideas, desires and needs of Romanians abroad. Sunday is a good opportunity to reiterate the government’s commitment to developing policies that will more effectively support Romanians abroad, said the interim prime minister Cătălin Predoiu. The Day of Romanians Abroad is marked annually on the last Sunday of May.

Defense – The US Embassy in Bucharest on Sunday marked the anniversary of the operationalization of the Aegis Ashore missile defense system in Romania, informally known as the “Deveselu defense shield”. The diplomatic mission believes that this state-of-the-art system plays a vital role in the missile defense architecture of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and that, since its activation, it has increased security and deterrence capacity on the eastern flank of the Alliance. The US Embassy emphasized that, at Deveselu, the collaboration between American and Romanian forces demonstrates the strength of the alliance and the common commitment to regional stability. The embassy’s message comes in the context of discussions about a possible reduction of the American military presence in Europe, a topic that is on the agenda of the NATO summit in The Hague, due between June 24 and 26. In parallel, European allies are preparing to ensure their security to a greater extent, amid Russia’s growing aggressiveness, and on the negotiating table is a proposal to gradually increase defense spending to 5% of Gross Domestic Product by 2032.

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 environment, 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)