The Week in Review 28 May – 3 June 2022

A look at the main headline-grabbing events this past week

România Internațional, 04.06.2022, 14:02

Fresh European sanctions against Russia

Romania welcomes the decision made at the European Council early this week in Brussels, where the leaders of the 27 EU Member States agreed to establish a progressive embargo on Russian oil imports. Part of the so-called sixth wave of economic sanctions against Russia, which came after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the embargo will initially target oil delivered by sea, which means two-thirds of the total. A temporary exemption has been agreed for the oil carried by ground pipelines, urged by Hungary, a country with now exit to the sea that threatens to use its veto right if this is not accepted. The extension of the embargo on pipeline deliveries will be discussed “as soon as possible” and a total of 90% of Russian oil exports to the Union will be stopped by the end of the year. The embargo will put an end to a huge source of funding for Russias war machine, according to the European Council President Charles Michel. The new package of European sanctions also provides for the exclusion of three Russian banks from the Swift international financial system. It also targets Sberbank, Russias largest bank. Analysts say that after the previous waves of sanctions, the Russian economy is beginning to feel the effects. The price of spare parts for foreign cars has increased by 30% and more. The annual inflation, which stood at almost 18% in April, is the highest in 20 years. Famous Western companies, from the McDonalds restaurant chain to the carmaker Renault, have withdrawn from the Russian market, and tens of thousands of people work part-time or are on forced leave.

Romanians want to see the Russian leaders convicted

Romanians are overwhelmingly on Ukraines side in the conflict with Russia. According to a new INSCOP poll, more than 70% of them believe Russia is to blame for the outbreak of the war, and 87% believe that the Russian leaders should be convicted of war crimes committed in Ukraine. In terms of membership in the European Union and NATO, over 80% are against leaving the two bodies. 22.7% of respondents say that Russia might occupy the neighboring Republic of Moldova (ex-Soviet, mostly Romanian-speaking), and more than two thirds (68.7%) do not believe in this possibility.

Welfare measures

Against the background of a galloping inflation, which keeps affecting the Romanians purchasing power, the coalition Government in Bucharest has decided that people with pensions less than or equal to 2,000 lei (about 400 euros) will receive in July a financial aid worth 700 lei (140 euros). The measure is complementary to the issuance of social vouchers with a nominal value of 250 lei (50 euros) for the purchase of foodstuffs by people in a difficult financial situation. The beneficiaries are over 2.5 million Romanians, and the money will come every two months.

The minister announces new reforms, students take to the streets gain

The rules of the game are changing again in education, the sector in which the largest number of reforms in the 32 years of post-communist Romanian democracy have been tested and, generally failed. After changing the structure of the next school year, Minister Sorin Cîmpeanu also announced other rules such as the dropping of semester GPAs and theses, to be replaced by just one general average grade at the end of the school year. He claims that in this way teachers will have much more autonomy in assessing the student throughout the school year, and the grades will truly highlight students skills.

Without commenting on the newly launched innovations, the National Student Council organized a protest at the ministrys headquarters against the situation in schools where students either receive unhealthy food or do not receive any. According to a World Vision Romania study, one in ten children go to bed hungry, and two out of ten children in rural areas say that their family only sometimes or never provide them with enough food. More than 1 in 3 teenagers in the country do not go to school because they have to work in the household, and one in ten children does not attend any educational institution.

The non-Euro Romania

Romania does not currently meet any of the four criteria necessary to be able to switch to the single European currency. According to the 1992 Maastrict Community Treaty, these criteria are price stability, sound and sustainable public finances, exchange rate stability and the convergence of long – term interest rates. Moreover, according to the so-called convergence report, published by the European Commission, of all the 27 member states of the Union, Romania is the only one that is subject to an excessive deficit procedure. The paradox noted by analysts is that in 2016 Romania did meet three of the four criteria. All that remained to be fulfilled was the exchange rate criterion, and as an additional condition set by the European Commission, legislative compatibility. In other words, the economic policies of the governments that followed, be they left-wing or right-wing, monochromatic or coalition, have only degraded Romanias compatibility with the demands of the eurozone.

Cannes awards

The Romanian Alexandru Belc won the best director award in the “Un Certain Regard” section of the famous Cannes Film Festival in France for the film Metronome. The film, almost a vintage reenactment, is about two high school students from communist Romania half a century ago, who love each other and send letters to the Metronome show of the Free Europe radio station, financed by the United States Congress, while tennis players Ion Ţiriac and Ilie Nastase are playing the Davis Cup final against the Americans. Metronome is the debut feature film of the director Alexandru Belc, so far known for the documentaries Cinema, mon amour (2015) and March 8 (2012).

A historic relegation

Romanias national football team is taking part this month in a new edition of the League of Nations, in a group in which it will take on Montenegro, Bosnia and Finland. The new campaign of the National Team was prefaced by the end of the domestic football season, another one devoid of any excitement. CFR Cluj (northwest) won the fifth title in five years, and Sepsi OSK Sfântu Gheorghe (center) won the Romanian Cup, a competition once full of charm, today lacking any stake. Only the relegation, for the first time, down to the 2nd national league, of the famous and popular Dinamo Bucharest, the second most famous team in Romanian football, after the fellow Steaua, is a historic event. With 18 titles and 13 Cups, the first team in Romania to reach the European Champions Cup semi-finals in 1984, Dinamo has disintegrated, after agonizing for years, with mediocre players and incompetent or outright criminal leaders, who have robbed the club founded in 1948 by the all-powerful Communist Ministry of the Interior. (MI)