PROTESTS Farmers from 18 Romanian counties took to the streets on Friday,
\ndissatisfied with the compensation proposed by the European Commission for the
\ndamage caused by the tax-free import of cheap cereals from Ukraine. Farmers
\ndemand that the European Union abandon the special regime applied to imports
\nfrom Ukraine, which – in their opinion – seriously disrupts the Romanian
\nmarket. Romania’s agriculture minister Petre Daea has pledged compensations for
\nthe affected farmers as soon as possible. The Romanian official also met some
\nof the farmers who protested in Bucharest. Poland has temporarily ceased its
\nimports of Ukrainian grains in order to offset their impact upon the local prices
\nbut the transit will continue. The announcement was made on Friday by the new
\nPolish Agriculture Minister, Robert Telus, who took over after his predecessor had
\nstepped down amid the farmers’ protests sparked off by the plummeting prices in
\ncereals. Farmers have also staged protests in Romania’s neighbour country, Bulgaria.
\n <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
BUDGET The Romanian government is looking for solutions to cover a hole
\nin the budget of 20 billion lei, so that the deficit does not exceed the target
\nof 4.4% of the GDP. The leaders of the ruling coalition claim that there are
\nunjustified expenses in many ministries and state institutions, and the
\nMinistry of Finance must reduce the waste of public funds. Liberal Prime Minister
\nNicolae Ciuc\u0103 has stressed that salaries or other types of income will not be
\ncut, but he asked the Minister of Finance, Adrian C\u00e2ciu, to propose concrete
\nmeasures to reduce expenses in the next nine months. The Social Democrat leader
\nMarcel Ciolacu also spoke about a reform in spending public money, in parallel
\nwith measures to reduce tax evasion. In his opinion, the system of increments
\nshould be eliminated, and the bonuses already earned introduced into the
\nsalary. Adrian C\u00e2ciu said that the adjustment of budget expenses will not
\naffect the social and economic packages developed by the coalition, nor the
\ninvestments. National Bank specialists consider, on the other hand, that
\nagainst the background of the high values \u200b\u200bof the current account deficit and
\nthe budget deficit, the money from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan
\nrepresents an extraordinary opportunity for the economy. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
HEALTH Romania’s Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila, says that the
\nmedical system in this country needs sufficient, well-trained staff who can
\nrespond professionally and empathetically to the needs of patients. At the same
\ntime, in his message on the occasion of the World Health Day, on April 7, the
\nminister said that investments are needed in health – in hospitals, in
\nspecialist clinics or in family doctors’ offices. This year, the motto of the
\nWorld Health Day is Health for all! In another move, the Minister
\nof Health said the number of respiratory illnesses and SARS-COV-2 infections
\nhas started to decrease, and Romania has sufficient stocks of medicines for the
\nnecessary treatments. According to Alexandru Rafila, there were 6,900 cases of
\nCOVID last week, the positivity rate being 10% lower than the previous week.
\nHowever, the number of deaths is still quite high, 59.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(bill&MI)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":105194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[35386,34608,30771,36844,28990,35910,28905],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-106582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-covid","tag-daea","tag-farmers","tag-grains","tag-protests","tag-rafila","tag-ukraine"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n