Deficit for the country<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Romania ended the year
\n2023 with a budget deficit of 5.68% of the GDP, more than one percentage point above the figure
\nconsidered when building the budget at the beginning of last year, which was 4.4%
\n– the Finance Ministry announced on Wednesday. The good news is that the
\ndeficit of 5.68% in 2023 is still below that anticipated by the European
\nCommission in its autumn forecast, i.e. 6.3%. The difference between expenses
\nand revenues stood at roughly 90 billion lei, the equivalent of 18 billion
\nEuros. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Romanian MPs at Work <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
After more than one-month
\nholiday, the Romanian senators and deputies kicked off a new Parliament session
\non February 1st. Measures aimed at limiting gambling and keeping
\ndrug use at bay, as well as the bills
\nneeded to reach the milestones in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, so
\nthat Romania can submit payment requests to receive the allocated European
\nfunds are high on the agenda of the PSD-PNL ruling coalition. The opposition USR & AUR have pledged to stall any
\nfurther tax hikes and prevent the Socialists and Liberals from violating the
\nConstitution, as the latter enjoy a comfortable majority in Parliament. The
\npress in Bucharest is bracing up for a session fraught with heated debates in a
\nyear when Romania is going to have all types of elections, European Parliament,
\nlocal, legislative and presidential. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Hackers for the Prime
\nMinister<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The Romanian government
\nhas amended through an emergency ordinance the cyber-security law so that state
\ninstitutions may be informed in 48 hours on any security breach in the IT
\ninfrastructures of Romania’s state entities enabling them to have a rapid
\nresponse. The amendments came after the cyber-attacks against the websites of
\nthe National Directorate for Cyber-Security and the Chamber of Deputies. The
\nMinister of Research and Digitization, Social-Democrat Bogdan Ivan, says that
\nthe cyber-attack on the Directorate failed whereas 300 files of public
\ndocuments have been stolen from the Chamber of Deputies, as well as classified
\ndata, such as copies of the IDs belonging to Romanian MPs. Among the stolen
\ndocuments is the ID of Romania’s Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who now needs
\nto get another ID card. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Another Romanian
\npolitician gets bribe<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Anti-corruption
\nprosecutors on Thursday carried out searches at the house of the president of
\nPrahova County Council, (southern Romania), Liberal Iulian Dumitrescu and
\nmembers of his family. On a 60-day pretrial conditional release, the politician
\nand several other persons are suspected of bribery and misrepresentation.
\nDumitrescu says he doesn’t have anything to conceal and can produce any
\ndocuments needed in the investigation. He has also announced his intention to step
\ndown from all the positions he holds in the party so as not to affect the
\nLiberals’ image. Dumitrescu was one of the four prime vice-presidents of the National
\nLiberal Party, part of the ruling coalition with the Social Democrats. He was
\nalso head of the party’s county branch. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
January 29 – February 4, 2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":125002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40944],"tags":[35393,32059,32811,100402,33354,28994],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-124807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-week-in-review","tag-bribe","tag-cyber-security","tag-deficit","tag-dumitrescu","tag-hackers","tag-it"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n