November 3, 2022 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 03.11.2022, 20:08

Earthquake. A
5.4 magnitude earthquake hit Romania on Thursday morning in the Buzău area in
the south-east of the country. The earthquake was felt in several cities,
including the capital Bucharest, but no emergency calls were received and no
damages or victims were reported. This was the strongest earthquake in the last
2 and a half years. A 5.2 quake occurred on January 31, 2020 in Vrancea,
Romania’s main seismic area. A bigger, 5.8 magnitude tremor was also reported
in October 2018, in Buzău County.

Defence.
Romanian president Klaus Iohannis and the French minister of the armed forces Sebastien
Lecornu had talks in Bucharest about the bilateral strategic partnership with a
focus on the defence component, the security situation in the Black Sea region
and the stage of the implementation of the allied decisions
taken at the NATO summit in Madrid. According to the president’s office, Mr
Iohannis thanked France for its efforts to establish and make operational the
NATO battle group in Romania as part of allied commitments to consolidate
NATO’s defence and deterrence posture on the eastern flank. The French minister
stated his country’s readiness to further develop and diversify bilateral
cooperation and appreciated the professionalism of the Romanian military and
the very good cooperation during training missions carried out in a bilateral
or allied context. During talks with prime minister Nicolae Ciuca, he announced
the deployment of a squadron of RAFALE fighter jets to carry out air policing
missions in Romania. Earlier, the visiting French official and the Romanian
defence minister Angel Tîlvăr inaugurated in Cincu, in the centre, the
headquarters of the Collective Defence Battle Group and visited the facilities
of the Getica National Joint Training Centre, also in Cincu. France leads the
NATO multinational battle group in Romania established in May.

IT.
GoTech World, the biggest event in the IT and digital world in Central and
Eastern Europe got under way in Bucharest. More than 80 leading companies from
Romania and the world are showcasing their products and services. The event,
which is taking place on Thursday and Friday, features 122 sessions and brings
together 130 speakers, influencers, experts and entrepreneurs from the IT
field. According to the head of the IT committee in the Chamber of Deputies
Sabin Sărmaş, Romania is fourth in Europe in terms of number of IT specialists,
but last in terms of the number of people possessing basic digital skills,
which he says is based on the lack of education in the field.

Cars. The number
of new cars registered in Romania in the first 10 months of the year went up by
over 8% compared with the same period last year to reach nearly 106,000. Car
registration also increased by 10% this October compared with October 2021. As
for second hand car registrations in the first 10 months of the year, the
number dropped by 20% compared with 2021, to 270,000. Most of the new cars
registered during this period, i.e. 31,000, were Dacia cars, which are
manufactured in Romania by the French group Renault. Ford also has a factory in
Romania, which was taken over last summer by Ford Otosan from Turkey, the
biggest producer of commercial vehicles in Europe.

Protests. Tens of thousands of
private sector employees took to the streets in Madrid to demand higher pay.
According to Radio Romania’s correspondent in Spain, trade union leaders say 4%
is the minimum acceptable rise to offset some of the price hikes this year. The
protests were announced as early as the beginning of October, when public
sector employees protested in Madrid and obtained a 9% pay rise. Trade unions
in the private sector then called for similar measures, but employers refused
to engage in dialogue, saying they are struggling with rising production costs
and that many businesses are forced to reduce their activity or even shut down
because of the crisis. (CM)