PENSIONS – The Government of Romania on Wednesday passed a decree
\non reforming the special pensions awarded to certain categories of
\nprofessionals such as magistrates, military, diplomats or employees of the
\nCourt of Accounts. Labor Minister Marius Bud\u0103i explained that the main
\nprovisions include adjusting the base calculation percentage used for
\ncalculating pensions from 80% to 65% of income, taking into account only
\npermanent sources of income and making sure no pension exceeds the total
\nincome. Depending on each category of professionals, the minimum seniority
\nperiod required in the field of activity will go up or the minimum subscription
\nlevel will match that in the public system. The Labor Minister gave assurances
\nthat talks with the World Bank and European partners will continue. When the
\ndocument is submitted for debate in early February, all provisions will be
\nclear, the Romanian official said. Reforming the special pension system is one
\nof the objectives the government committed to achieve under the National
\nRecovery and Resilience Plan by the end of this year. Also on Wednesday, the
\ngovernment announced it would introduce additional taxes for energy companies
\nthat reported high profits in the recent period marked by the crisis. The draft
\nlaw stipulates a 60% additional tax on large profits reported this year by
\ncompanies and refineries in the oil, natural gas and coal sectors. State
\nSecretary with the Finance Ministry, Mihai Diaconu, explained that the tax will
\napply to any source of income that exceeds the average of profits in the last
\nfour years by over 20%.<\/p>\n
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POLL – The latest poll conducted by INSCOP on the performance
\nof Romanian political parties indicates that two of the three parties in the
\nruling coalition, namely the Social Democratic Party and the National Liberal
\nParty, lost percentages in December, while the nationalist Alliance for the
\nUnion of Romanians, in opposition, grew by 2%. The poll conducted in December
\nindicates that the Social Democrats lost almost 5%, but is still ahead in
\nvoting intentions, with 31.5%. The Liberals are in second place with 20.2%,
\nfollowed by the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, with 18.1%, and the Save
\nRomania Union, also in opposition, with 10.9%. The junior partner in the ruling
\ncoalition, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, maintains its
\nusual percentage of 5% which would allow it to enter Parliament. The INSCOP
\nexperts say the data were collected both before and after Romania’s bid to join
\nthe Schengen free-movement area was rejected, on 8th December. The
\nINSCOP director Remus \u015etefureac said the data showed a zigzag performance by
\nthe parties, with no clear, predictable trends yet for 2024, when presidential,
\nparliamentary, local and European elections will take place in Romania. <\/p>\n
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DEFICIT -
\nRomania’s budget deficit reached 4.2% of the GDP in the first 11 months of the year,
\naccording to the Finance Ministry, a 0.5% drop compared to the same period of
\n2021. The deficit target for 2022 is 5.8% of the GDP. <\/p>\n
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POWER PLANT – Mass Global Energy Rom, a company based
\nin Jordan, has become the owner of the Mintia thermal power plant in Hunedoara County,
\nin central Romania, after making the final payment of over 80 million euros as
\nestablished after it won a tender held in August. The new owner promised that
\nin the next three years, the plant would see an extensive development process,
\nwith investments of over 1 billion euros and the creation of new jobs. <\/p>\n
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ACCIDENT – One of the two Ukrainians who went missing in the
\nMaramure\u015f Mountains, in north-western Romania, was found dead by a local
\nresident. The border police and mountain rescue services had resumed searches
\non Tuesday only to abandon them again owing to difficult weather conditions. On
\nSaturday, a group of six Ukrainians called the emergency number saying they
\nwere stranded at an altitude of 1,800 meters. They had been trying to cross the
\nmountains from Ukraine into Romania. Four were rescued by the Romanian rescue
\nservices. Another is still missing. After Ukraine was invaded by Russia on 24th
\nFebruary, Kyiv declared a general mobilization and ordered the martial law,
\nwhich bans men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country, with many
\ntrying to do so illegally. (VP)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A roundup of domestic and international news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":105208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[30079,37282,36596,29669,37283],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-106382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-budget-deficit","tag-inscop-poll","tag-power-plant","tag-special-pensions","tag-ukrainians-in-maramures-mountains"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n