The Week in Review 15-21.09.2025
The headline-grabbing events of the past week in Romania
Leyla Cheamil, 20.09.2025, 14:00
OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann visits Romania
The Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Mathias Cormann, visited Romania on Monday, where he met with the authorities in Bucharest. Romania began talks to join the organization in June 2022, which requires aligning itself with the highest standards in economic, fiscal, decision-making and sectoral policies. “For Romania, joining the OECD is a strategic objective,” said President Nicușor Dan, after the meeting he had with Mathias Cormann. According to the head of state, joining “is the strongest international recognition that we live in a developed country, and the experience of other states shows that joining was followed by significant economic progress.” In turn, the Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan assured that Romania would do everything to join this organization. He told Secretary General Mathias Cormann that, three years after receiving the roadmap, Romania is getting closer to achieving this objective. The enlargement of the OECD is a priority, said Mathias Cormann, as it aims to expand standards and good practices. “The new members bring new perspectives and experiences in terms of policies and, we hope, that they contribute to strengthening the relevance and impact of our activity. Romania has an important role in the region, in Eastern Europe,” emphasized the Secretary General of the organization. He pointed out that Romania has made “excellent progress” in implementing the required reforms and has entered the final stage of the technical assessment. Mathias Cormann announced that the economic analysis of Romania would be launched in March 2026 in Bucharest, as a final step in the accession process.
The Romanian Senate rejects the motion of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) against the Education Minister
The Romanian Senate rejected, on Monday, the simple motion tabled by the populists from the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) against the Education Minister Daniel David. The opposition party claims that the coalition government (PSD, PNL, USR and UDMR) is throwing the Romanian education system into collapse “through aberrant and destructive decisions” and “condemning the future of this nation to mediocrity and chaos”. The signatories to the motion claimed that, under the leadership of the current minister, the national education system has been subjected to “brutal austerity measures, applied through lies, manipulation and contempt for the real needs of students, parents and teachers”. Present at the debate on the motion, Minister David gave counterarguments that no employee in the education system has lost their position as a result of the fiscal-budgetary measures taken by the Government. However, he admitted that education has had problems for many years, but some of them are systemic.
Projections on the economic situation of Romania
Romania has all the ingredients to overcome, by the end of 2026, the fiscal-budgetary context it is currently going through, through a well-developed plan and through consistency, the Finance Minister Alexandru Nazare said on Wednesday at a business forum organized in Bucharest. However, he drew attention to the fact that Romania would remain in the excessive deficit procedure for several more years, because it has long delayed the budgetary adjustment process. Alexandru Nazare stressed that this adjustment should have been started and finalized 5 years ago, given that there was a 10-year process in which Romania received recommendations from the European Commission on this issue, until 2019. Attending the same event, the National Bank of Romania’s chief economist, Valentin Lazea, predicted that inflation should fall to almost 3.5% by December next year, but only on condition that the measures to reduce the budget deficit are fully implemented. He explained that the current level of inflation – 9.9% per year – is very high and is mainly caused by the liberalization of electricity prices, which contributed 2.2% to the increase in inflation.
Romanians agree with voluntary military service
For almost two decades, military service has no longer been mandatory in Romania, and now the army wants to attract young people on a voluntary basis. Defense Minister Ionuț Moșteanu announced that a new legal framework is being prepared to grow and rejuvenate the army reserve. Young people between the ages of 18 and 35 will be able to complete a four-month training program, during which they will be paid. Currently, the average age of reservists is approximately 47. An INSCOP survey published on Wednesday reveals that almost three-quarters of Romanians agree with voluntary military service. However, this is a decrease of over 5% compared to July, when 79.4% supported such an option. In contrast, a fifth of the survey respondents have a negative opinion of the introduction of the voluntary military service, compared to 15.1% in July. The measure is supported by 60% of people with primary education, 76% of those with secondary education and 87% of those with higher education.
The George Enescu International Festival is coming to an end
The George Enescu International Festival closes its doors on Sunday after more than a month of music celebration. On Thursday, at the Palace Hall, the Orchestre National de France and the George Enescu Philharmonic Choir, led by conductor Cristian Măcelaru, performed, for the first time in Romania, the music of Maurice Ravel’s ballet Daphnis and Chloé. Starting on Wednesday, for five days, George Enescu Square in Bucharest has been transformed into a space for classical music. The stage located in front of the Romanian Athenaeum hosts symphonic music concerts with free admission, as part of this year’s edition of the festival. Since the first edition, in 1958, Radio Romania has been with the Enescu Festival, as a co-producer, uninterruptedly until today. (LS)
