May 30 – June 5

A look at the headline-making events this past week

România Internațional, 04.06.2016, 14:02

Local elections in Romania

Local elections are held in Romania on Sunday, June 5. More than 250,000 have entered the race for a mayor, local or county councilor seat, and the election will take place in one round alone. A novelty in Sunday’s elections is the digitization of polling stations, in order to prevent voting fraud. There are 18,600 polling stations in the country. The election is hoped to rejuvenate a local administration stained by countless corruption scandals. Last year alone, as many as 14 city mayors, nine county council presidents and a prefect were sent to court.

Romania’s Response to Russian statements

The President of Romania Klaus Iohannis says the recent statements made by Moscow are inaccurate and emphasized that the missile defense system in Deveselu does not target Russia. According to the head of state, such ungrounded threats reconfirm that Romania’s approach, namely strengthening NATO security as a legitimate response to Moscow’s stance in the Black Sea region, is appropriate.

Klaus Iohannis: The recent statements coming from the Russian Federation, concerning the anti-missile platform, are essentially inaccurate, because the system has nothing to do with Russia. These speeches cannot intimidate us. On the contrary, such ungrounded statements reconfirm that our endeavor to strengthen NATO security as a legitimate response to Russia’s stance in the Black Sea region is the right one.

In turn, the Romanian Foreign Ministry expressed its surprise with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning that Romania might find itself in the sights of Russian rockets, because it hosts elements of the American missile defence system. These statements, the Foreign Ministry said, may be read as a threat to regional security.

Protests in Bucharest

Trade unions in education protested in Bucharest the salary system in the Romanian public education sector. The unionists primarily demand that 6% of the GDP be earmarked for education, as stipulated in the Education Law. The decision to resort to street protests followed several failed rounds of salary negotiations with the Government. The Labour Minister Dragos Paslaru said the Government did not have the necessary funds to raise salaries in this sector, and explained that what should be done is to correct the salary calculation method, rather than to increase wages in a populist move. The Government announced that on June 7 an order would be passed, regulating salaries in the state sector. According to the Labor Minister, the order will address the dysfunctions in the system, correcting a number of errors. The emergency order particularly addresses the entry-level teaching staff, administrative staff, kindergarten teachers and assistant professors, who will get 16% to 20% pay rises.

The Labor Minister emphasized that not all salaries in the public education sector can be increased:

Had we given a 3% increase for all categories, we would have seen the university professors’ salaries go up as well, so the wage gap we are talking about would have further widened. Because when you apply a percentage increase to all salaries, from the lowest level to the highest, the gap between them grows even wider.

The planned corrections are estimated to benefit 120,000 of the total 260,000 teaching staff in the system.

New aviation tragedy

Four employees of Romania’s Mobile Emergency, Resuscitation and Extrication Service, SMURD, lost their lives on Thursday, when their helicopter crashed in the neighboring Republic of Moldova. The accident took place in a village near the Romanian – Moldovan border, as the mobile unit was trying to get to a patient. Two Romanian investigation teams joined forces with the experts in Chisinau to establish the causes of the tragedy. Eyewitnesses have reported that the helicopter went down because of the bad weather and low visibility. The Military Prosecution Division in Bucharest also initiated a criminal investigation, suspecting failure to observe work place safety standards. The Republic of Moldova observed a day of national mourning for the four Romanian rescue workers on Friday.

Romania at Euro 2016

The manager of Romania’s national football squad Anghel Iordanescu announced the list of 23 players selected for the European Championship scheduled to take place in France between June 10 and July 10. In the Euro 2016 opening game, Romania is playing the host team, in a group that also includes Switzerland and Albania. Also in sports, the national women’s handball team has secured the tickets for the 2016 European Championship, after defeating Lithuania, 34-24, in Kaunas, in the last but one stage of Preliminary Group 1. The same team will also represent Romania in this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.