Budget.<\/strong> President Klaus
<\/p>\n
Szeklers.<\/strong> The Romanian Senate gathers today to debate and vote on three
<\/p>\n
Government.<\/strong> The Romanian Government will meet again today, in the last
<\/p>\n
Timisoara. <\/strong>The activities carried out part of the ‘Timi\u015foara – European
<\/p>\n
Handball.<\/strong> The men’s national teams of Romania and Georgia will face each
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":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-612062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nIohannis has promulgated the State Budget Law and the State Social Insurance
\nBudget Law for the year 2024. Next year, Romania’s budget will be focused on
\ninvestments worth about 7% of the GDP, as well as on an economic growth rate of
\n3.4%, while the budget deficit is estimated at 5% of the GDP. The budgets were
\nendorsed five days later by the joined chambers of the Romanian Parliament. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nlegislative initiatives set forth by the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians (UDMR)
\nregarding the autonomy of the so-called Szeklers Land, in the center of the
\ncountry. The initiatives were rejected
\nby the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday. At the plenary talks, deputies from all
\nthe other parties stressed that such bills came in violation of some articles in the Constitution and harmed the
\nrule of law, while the initiators argued the opposite, saying that territorial
\nautonomy worked in several European states. Deputies from the opposition nationalist
\nAlliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) criticized the urgency of scheduling
\nthe debates during the parliamentary vacation and accused an agreement between the
\nSocial Democratic Party ( member of the ruling coalition, together with the
\nNational Liberal Party), and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians, for electoral purposes. The rejected texts
\nprovided for the autonomization of Covasna and Harghita counties and a
\npart of Mure\u015f county and their establishment as an autonomous region with legal
\npersonality. In the hypothetical autonomous entity, the Hungarian
\nlanguage would have the same status as the official language of the Romanian
\nstate. The land would also have its own president, elected for a four-year term
\nby universal suffrage. The so-called Szeklers Land, the only area in Romania
\nwhere the Hungarian population is the majority, benefited from autonomy between
\n1952 and 1968. Historians say that, in Romania occupied by Soviet troops, that
\nwas an experiment imposed on the vassal regime in Bucharest by the Kremlin
\ndictator Joseph Stalin, at the insistence of the communist leaders in Budapest.
\nThe ethnic Hungarian population in Romania decreased, according to the 2021
\ncensus, both in absolute values \u200b\u200b(from 1.22 million in 2011 to 1.002 million
\nnow) and as a share in the total population (from 6.5% to 6% ), according to
\ndata provided by the National Institute of Statistics. Its main political party,
\nUDMR, has been represented, without interruption, in the Parliament of
\npost-communist Romania, from 1990 until today. Since 1996, the UDMR has been
\npart of numerous coalition governments in Bucharest, whether right-wing or
\nleft-wing.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nsession of this year, to approve normative acts regarding scholarships for
\nstudents in pre-university education and the granting of state aid in
\nagriculture. The Government has also adopted, by emergency ordinance, wage
\nincreases in education. It is an increase of almost 20% on average, which will
\nbe allocated in two installments: starting January 1 and June 1, 2024,
\nrespectively. About 350,000 people in the system will benefit from this
\nmeasure. Principals and deputy principals of schools will receive salaries 36%
\nhigher than this month.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nCapital of Culture 2023’ program, including the Constantin Br\u00e2ncu\u015fi exhibition,
\nreceived the most responses (29%) to receive the title of ‘event of the year
\n2023 in Romania’, in a survey carried out by the Romanian Institute for
\nEvaluation and Strategy (IRES). According to the sociological research, the
\nsecond event that marked Romania in 2023 was the qualification of the national
\nfootball team to the final tournament of the European Championship – UEFA EURO
\n2024, which will take place next summer in Germany (24% of responses).
\nRegarding culture and free time, 58% of the survey respondents said that they
\nread at least one book in 2023, and 41%
\nthat they also bought books, 36% went to a show, and 20% went to a stadium or
\nattended a sports competition. More than three quarters of the survey
\nparticipants (76%) stated that had been to church this year.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nother today in the final of the Carpathian Trophy international handball
\ntournament, organized in Pitesti, southern Romania. On Thursday, in the semifinals, Romania
\ndefeated Greece 31-27, and Georgia beat Slovakia 32-27. For Romania, trained by
\nthe famous Spanish coach Xavi Pascual, the Carpathian Trophy is the last test
\nbefore the European Championship – EHF EURO 2024 in Germany, between January 10
\nand 28, 2024. The Romanians will play in Group B, alongside Spain, Austria and
\nCroatia. The first two ranked teams will qualify for the so-called main groups. A
\nquadruple world champion in the 1960-70s, Romania had not qualified for a
\nEuropean Championship since 1996.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"