November 15, 2025 UPDATE (II)

The latest from domestic and world news

Newsroom, 15.11.2025, 19:30

Measures. The Romanian government will announce next week a third package of fiscal and budgetary measures targeting local and central government, Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan has announced. The legislation, which provides for staff and spending cuts, will be adopted by the executive. As far as local government is concerned, staff cuts will be made gradually, the prime minister said. Also regarding layoffs in the administration, Development Minister Cseke Attila said that staff reductions will only be made following competitions. He said that the draft legislation will be ready in a few days, but it is not yet clear how many people will be laid off from the central administration. According to the agreement reached within the coalition, approximately 13,000 employees will be laid off from local government. Approximately 700 town halls will not be affected by these reforms, the development minister said.

IMF. The International Monetary Fund urges Romania to develop an appropriate mix of policies and reforms to support economic growth and protect financial stability. The recommendations appear in a report prepared by the international financial institution following consultations with the Bucharest administration. According to the document, the IMF leadership welcomes the comprehensive fiscal reform package for 2025-2026 recently adopted, but notes that it must be fully implemented to strengthen market confidence. On the other hand, IMF representatives agreed that the resurgence of inflationary pressures requires a cautious approach to monetary policy and recommend that the National Bank of Romania resume cuts in the monetary policy interest rate only after wage and price growth moderates in a sustained manner.

Drones. The Russian Federation’s ambassador to Romania, Vladimir Lipaev, was summoned on Friday to the Romanian Foreign Ministry for talks about the drone that had recently entered Romanian airspace. According to a statement from the Bucharest diplomatic service, he was presented with “tangible, extensive, and solid” evidence of the violation of Romanian airspace by an unmanned aerial vehicle belonging to the Russian military during the night of November 10-11. The institution states that the fragments recovered by the Romanian authorities from the crash site of the aircraft prove beyond doubt its origin and involvement in the massive attacks that night against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure near the border with Romania. The Romanian side expressed its strong protest to the Russian ambassador against this “unacceptable and irresponsible act,” which represents a violation of Romania’s sovereignty. In a statement published last night on its Facebook page, the Russian Embassy in Bucharest rejects the accusations, which it describes as “absurd and unfounded,” and writes that the fragments and photographs of an unmanned aerial vehicle presented are not in fact evidence, as the coordinates of the aircraft’s entry into Romania and data on its route were not provided. The Russian Embassy also argues that the nature of the fragments unequivocally indicates that the drone did not crash on its own, but was shot down by air defence forces, which could only have happened outside Romanian airspace, completely ruling out any speculation about an alleged intentional violation of Romania’s territorial integrity.

Inflation. The National Bank of Romania has revised its annual inflation forecasts upwards, both for the end of this year, from 8.8% to 9.6%, and for the end of 2026, from 3% to 3.7%. The governor of the Central Bank, Mugur Isărescu, stressed that the reasons why prices rose more than expected between July and September are not only the increases in VAT and excise duties or the liberalization of the energy market, but also the rather tense political and social climate. Isărescu estimated that inflation in Romania will only begin to decline towards the end of next year, after the effects of tax increases and the removal of caps on electricity prices have dissipated. Thus, inflation would return to the NBR’s target range of 1.5-3.5% only in the first quarter of 2027.

Minorities. Romanian Foreign Minister Oana Ţoiu announced that she has discussed the situation of Romanian high schools in Chernivtsi with her counterpart in Kyiv, Andri Sibiha, emphasizing Romania’s special attention to the reform of the Ukrainian education system and the requirement that it protect the needs of the Romanian community in terms of access to education in their mother tongue. In a post on platform X, Oana Ţoiu writes that she clarified that, although some phases of the educational reform in the neighboring country involve local proposals, the final decision on the number of high schools will not ignore the legitimate needs of the Romanian community. Another topic was Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. For his part, the Ukrainian foreign minister said in an online post that he discussed the main topics of bilateral cooperation, common security challenges in the region, and the implementation of the agreements reached during last week’s talks between the Romanian and Ukrainian presidents, Nicuşor Dan and Volodymyr Zelenski, respectively.

Pollution. Romania is among the nine European Union member states that reduced their greenhouse gas emissions in the first half of the year while also seeing growth in their gross domestic product. In the second quarter of 2025, greenhouse gas emissions from the EU economy were estimated at 772 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, a decrease of 0.4% compared to the same quarter of 2024. At the same time, the Union’s gross domestic product grew by 1.3%. The economic sectors that have consistently reduced their emissions from year to year are electricity, gas, and air conditioning, by almost 3%, manufacturing, and transport, by 0.4% each. In contrast, households increased their emissions by 1%.

Tennis. Romanian tennis player Ruxandra Bertea defeated New Zealand’s Vivian Yang on Saturday in Poland in the first singles match of the encounter between Romania and New Zealand in Group B of the Billie Jean King Cup playoffs. Bertea (ranked 319th in the WTA), a newcomer to the Romanian team, won in two sets, 6-2, 6-1. In the second singles match, Romania’s Gabriela Lee (ranked 292nd in the WTA) will face Elyse Tse (ranked 909th in the WTA). On Sunday, Romania will face Poland. In 2024, Romania qualified for the final tournament in Malaga, where it was eliminated in the round of 16 by Japan.