VISIT The president of Romania Klaus Iohannis, currently on a visit to Germany, has talks today with the president of the Bundestag, after a meeting with the president of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier yesterday in which they discussed security issues and the support Romania and Germany will continue to provide to Ukraine. Klaus Iohannis will give an address today at a ceremony commemorating the victims of war and dictatorship. The Romanian official\u2019s agenda also includes a meeting with the president of the Christian Democratic Union, Friedrich Merz, whose party is seen as the most likely to win the early elections due in February 2025. On Friday, Klaus Iohannis had talks with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with whom he discussed Romania\u2019s full Schengen accession, among other topics.<\/p>\n
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EU Romania\u2019s PM Marcel Ciolacu has a working visit to Brussels scheduled for Monday. He will have meetings with NATO\u2019s new secretary general, Mark Rutte, with the president-elect of the European Council, Ant\u00f3nio Costa and with the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola. Marcel Ciolacu is accompanied by a governmental delegation which includes the foreign minister Lumini\u0163a Odobescu and the defence minister Angel T\u00eelv\u0103r. The visit to Brussels comes ahead of the start of a new EU institutional cycle, following the elections held this June, and ahead of the endorsement of the new Strategic Agenda for 2024-2029.<\/p>\n
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OBITUARY The former gymnastics coach Bela Karoly died at the age of 82. The cause of death has not been made public, but he was known to have had various health problems over the past few years. Bela Karoly coached the world-famous Nadia Com\u0103neci, who got the first \u201cperfect 10\u201d in the history of the Olympic Games in Montreal, in 1976, followed by further outstanding performances. Karoly fell out of favour with the communist regime when he criticised the arbitration at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. A year later he defected to the US, where he came to coach a number of American gymnasts, some of whom became Olympic or world champions. Karoly and his wife chose to stay away from the public eye, after being targeted by allegations regarding the brutal methods he used in training.<\/p>\n
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MEDICAL SCHOOLS\u00a0In the university cities of Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca (centre), T\u00e2rgu Mure\u015f (centre), Craiova (south-west), Ia\u015fi (north-east) and Timi\u015foara (west), residency admission exam take place today, with over 10,000 medical school graduates in Romania sitting. They compete over the 4,961 places and 237 positions available, meaning an average 2 candidates per place and 44 candidates per position. The exam is a multiple-choice test with 200 questions in each sub-field and a duration of 4 hours. Romania has been struggling for years with a major shortage of human resources in the healthcare system. According to the National Statistics Institute, at the end of 2023 Romania had 72,740 physicians, i.e. 357 per 100,000 people. This is below countries like Bulgaria (with 480 physicians per 100,000 people), Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Cyprus, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden.<\/p>\n
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SAVINGS\u00a0Nearly three-quarters of Romanians are concerned with price increases, and say they will spend less these holidays, according to an EU-wide survey. Moreover, some economists predict a complicated year ahead and call on people to save money. Apart from simple methods like setting a monthly budget and strictly monitoring expenses, experts have a savings solution for low-income categories as well. The Centre for Banking Dispute Settlement recommends the 52-week method, in which a person saves as much money as the number of the week in question, to reach EUR 277 during a year. Nearly 40% of Romanian consumers plan to spend between EUR 100 and 200 for their Christmas shopping.<\/p>\n
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FORESTRY CODE\u00a0Romania\u2019s new Forestry Code, aimed at preventing wood theft, is waiting for the green light from Parliament\u2019s specialist committees before being discussed in the Chamber of Deputies, the decision-making body in this respect. The draft legislation still requires positive reports from the committees on agriculture and legal affairs, after being approved by the committee on environment. Several amendments have been introduced in the process, concerning among other things the planting of green areas around cities, access to all forests on foot or by bicycle and pre-emptive rights to top-quality materials for Romanian furniture producers. The new law will punish theft by seizure of the wood and of the vehicle used in the theft. A National Forestry Council will also be set up, to monitor compliance with ethical and professional standards among forestry staff. The new Forestry Code is a benchmark in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, and the government intends to have it endorsed by December. (AMP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VISIT The president of Romania Klaus Iohannis, currently on a visit to Germany, has talks today with the president of the Bundestag, after a meeting with the president of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier yesterday in which they discussed security issues and the support Romania and Germany will continue to provide to Ukraine. Klaus Iohannis will give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":731782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[33656,36845,32532,35149,29749,29455,29125,158407,32751,158408,29295],"coauthors":[116091],"class_list":["post-830477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-code","tag-exam","tag-finances","tag-forestry","tag-germany","tag-gymnastics","tag-iohannis","tag-karoly","tag-medical","tag-residency","tag-visit"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n