August 7, 2023

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 07.08.2023, 13:55

Spending. The government is this week planning
to adopt an emergency order to cut public spending. The fifty measures
envisaged include reducing the number of management and under-secretary positions,
the merger of various institutions and eliminating holiday vouchers for some
budget employees. According to estimates from the finance ministry, this would
save the state budget more than 1.2 billion euros by the end of the year. The
government is also planning an emergency order introducing a number of tax
changes aimed at increasing budget revenues. Talks on the subject are still
ongoing between the two parties in the ruling coalition, the Social Democratic
Party and the National Liberal Party, amid criticism from the business
community.

Summit. Romania will continue to
stand by Ukraine as long as it takes to win this war, said the presidential
advisor and former foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu at the Ukraine peace talks
in Saudi Arabia. Any future solution for peace must guarantee Ukraine’s security
within its internationally recognised borders and the freedom to hold sovereign
elections, free of interference, the Romanian official also said. According to
the BBC, the summit’s final declaration only refers to the decision to hold
further peace talks. The summit was attended by senior officials from dozens of
countries, including Brazil, India, China and South Africa, with Russia not
invited.

Defence. The Romanian defence
minister Angel Tîlvăr is today making an official visit to the Republic of
Moldova following an invitation from his counterpart in Chişinău, Anatolie
Nosatîi. According to the defence ministry in Bucharest, the agenda of talks
features the stage of bilateral cooperation in the area of defence, as well as
issues related to cooperation in a NATO and EU context and in the region, from
a security perspective and amid the challenges arising from Russia’s war of
aggression against Ukraine.

Pensions. Romanian senators and
deputies are to return to Parliament this week to again amend a bill adopted at
the end of June on the special pensions enjoyed by a number of professional
categories in Romania, such as magistrates, the military and the police. Prime
minister Marcel Ciolacu said he summoned a special session of Parliament as a
number of articles of the bill were declared unconstitutional last week.
According to official figures, the number of special pensions is growing, with
over 10,000 recorded in July, up from the previous month. The highest special
pension amounted to around 4,300 euros. Romania has committed to reforming the
special pensions system in order to receive the recovery and resilience funds
allocated by the European Union.

Bank. The board of the National Bank of Romania
is meeting today to discuss issues of monetary policy. At last month’s meeting,
it maintained the monetary policy interest rate at 7% a year and said it
expected the inflation rate to drop over the coming months. On Friday, the
ROBOR three-month index used to calculate variable interest rates in the national
currency went up to 6.43% from 6.41%, according to data published by the
National Bank.

Travel. The Romanian foreign ministry has warned
Romanian citizens currently in Norway or planning to travel there that the Norwegian
authorities have issued a series of weather alerts until 10th
August. Red and orange codes are in place warning of heavy rain, strong winds,
flooding, landslides and fires. The storms that hit southern Norway are estimated
to be the strongest in the last 25 years. (CM)