VISIT The PM of Romania Nicolae Ciuc\u0103 will be on a visit to
\nBrussels on Monday and Tuesday, for talks with senior EU and NATO officials. According
\nto the Government, on Monday the Romanian PM will have a working dinner with
\nthe president of the European Council Charles Michael. On Tuesday, Ciuc\u0103 will
\nhave meetings with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der
\nLeyen and with other EC members. The PM will also have a meeting with the
\nsecretary general of NATO Jens Stoltenberg at the NATO headquarters.<\/p>\n
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BUDGET The
\ngovernment of Romania passed a number of measures on which the 2022 public
\nbudget is based. An emergency order freezing the salaries of public officials and
\nother public sector staff, with 2 exceptions, was endorsed by the Cabinet with
\namendments compared to the version subject to public debate. The bill also
\nincludes other measures, such as a low VAT rate only for the purchase of a
\nfamily’s first home. The new tax provisions, alongside the new Ceilings Act,
\nare the foundation of next year’s state budget, and are designed to reduce
\nexpenditure and maintain the public deficit below 6.2% of GDP. <\/p>\n
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ANTI-CORRUPTION The government approved the 2021-2025 National
\nAnti-Corruption Strategy, the justice minister C\u0103t\u0103lin Predoiu announced. He pointed
\nout that the document is a political commitment to support all institutions
\ninvolved in fighting corruption, and also a first goal met out of the ones
\nincluded in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan in the judicial sector. Predoiu
\nadded that the Strategy is correlated with international instruments to which
\nRomania is affiliated, such as GRECO and the Cooperation and Verification
\nMechanism. The CVM was introduced in January 2007, upon Romania’s and Bulgaria’s EU accession, to support the 2
\ncountries in overcoming deficiencies in judicial reform and in fighting
\ncorruption.<\/p>\n
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BORDER Romanian border checkpoints are getting crowded these days,
\nas many Romanians living abroad are coming home for Christmas. Queuing is
\nreported at the checkpoints on Romania’s western borders, as apart from travel
\ndocuments the digital Covid certificates and the PCR tests must be checked. Crowding
\nwas also reported on the Otopeni International Airport, near Bucharest. Hundreds
\nof people waited for a long time for the authorities to check their documents. On
\nMonday, an additional digital form will be introduced, to trace travellers. In order
\nto streamline border crossing, at the checkpoint in Giurgiu (south), the number
\nof border police will be increased by 20%. <\/p>\n
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MINORITIES Romania
\ncelebrates on December 18 the Day of Ethnic Minorities. The president Klaus
\nIohannis said on this occasion that ethnic minorities make an essential
\ncontribution to social cohesion and that only together can a modern Romania be
\nbuilt, with no place for racism, xenophobia and intolerance. Protecting cultural
\nheritage, including that of national minorities, is a priority for the Culture
\nMinistry, which treasures the culture of minorities as an element contributing
\nin the shaping of Romanian culture as we know it today, reads a news release
\nissued by the institution. As many as 18 ethnic minorities are officially
\nrecognised in Romania at present, namely Hungarian, Rroma,
\nGerman, Ukrainian, Russian, Lipovan, Jewish, Turk, Tatar, Armenian, Bulgarian,
\nSerbian, Croatian, Czech, Slovakian, Polish, Greek, Albanian and Italian.<\/p>\n
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COVID 733 new COVID-19 cases and 64 related fatalities were
\nreported in the last 24 hours in Romania, the authorities announced on
\nSaturday. The coordinator of the vaccination campaign, Valeriu Gheorghi\u0163\u0103, announced
\non the other hand that the number of people requesting their first doses of anti
\nSars-CoV-2 vaccine is on the decrease. He detailed that the number of people
\nwho get their first vaccine doses drops by 15-25% from one week to the next. Valeriu Gheorghi\u0163\u0103 also said that Romania
\nmight receive Pfizer vaccine children doses next month, and the vaccination of
\nchildren aged 5 to 11 may begin in the second half of January. (tr. A.M. Popescu)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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