December 29, 2023 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 29.12.2023, 20:00
BUDGET President
Klaus Iohannis Friday promulgated the state budget law and the social security budget
law for the year 2024. Next year, Romania’s budget will be focused on
investments of about 7% of the GDP, as well as on an economic growth rate of
3.4%, while the budget deficit is estimated at 5% of the GDP. The government
passed the bills on December 15, and the budgets were endorsed five days later
by the joined chambers of the Romanian Parliament.
PARLIAMENT Romania’s Senate Friday dismissed 3 bills
tabled by the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania regarding the autonomy of the Szeklers Land, a
region in the centre of the country. The
initiatives were rejected by the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday. At the
plenary talks, the MPs from all the other parties stressed that the bills came against
several articles in the Constitution and harmed the rule of law, while the
initiators argued the opposite, saying that territorial autonomy worked in a
number European states. The bills provided for the Covasna and Harghita
counties and a part of Mureş county becoming autonomous, as part of a region
with legal personality. In that presumed autonomous entity, the Hungarian
language would have had the same status as the official language of the
Romanian state. The land would also have its own president, elected for a
four-year term by universal ballot. The so-called Szeklers Land, the only area
in Romania where the Hungarian population is the majority, benefited from
autonomy between 1952 and 1968. According to historians, this was an experiment
in Soviet-occupied Romania imposed on Bucharest by the Kremlin dictator Joseph
Stalin, at the insistence of the communist leaders in Budapest. The ethnic
Hungarian population in Romania has been represented, without interruption, in
the Parliament of post-communist Romania since 1990 until today, by the
Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians. Since 1996, the UDMR has been part of
numerous coalition governments in Bucharest, whether right-wing or left-wing.
EDUCATION The Romanian government Friday passed the 2024 – 2027
National Strategy on Adult Education, aimed at enhancing citizen participation
in life-long learning programmes and at improving the quality of adult
education and training. The targeted participation rate by the end of 2027 is
12%, as against 5.9% at present. The EU average life-long learning
participation rate is 11.9%. The low level of participation in lifelong
learning schemes has led to persisting lack of skills, which prevents economic
development and hinders Romania’s adjustment to a fast-changing labour market
in the digital era, the government said in a news release.
TIMIŞOARA The activities carried out part of the ‘Timişoara – European Capital
of Culture 2023’ programme, including the Constantin Brâncuşi exhibition,
received the most votes (29%) to receive the title of ‘event of the year 2023
in Romania’, in a survey carried out by the Romanian Institute for Evaluation
and Strategy (IRES). According to the poll, the second event that marked
Romania in 2023 was the qualification of the national football team to the
final tournament of the European Championship – UEFA EURO 2024, which will take
place next summer in Germany (24% of responses). Regarding culture and free
time, 58% of the survey respondents said that they read at least one book in
2023, and 41% that they also bought books, 36% went to a show, and 20% went to
a stadium or attended a sports competition. More than three quarters of the
survey participants (76%) stated that they went to church this year.
POLICE Close to 24,000 interior ministry staff will be on
duty during the 4-day New Year’s holiday, while road traffic will be monitored
by 360 radar speed guns and DUI check teams. Meanwhile, the authorities announced
having seized over 100 tonnes of fireworks kits and opening more than 500 criminal
investigations in this respect, and have once again called on parents not to
buy firecrackers for their children as such materials may be extremely
dangerous.
HANDBALL The men’s national handball team of Romania Friday won the
Carpaţi Trophy international handball tournament, organised in Pitesti,
southern Romania, after defeating Georgia 31-25 in the final. For Romania, trained by the famous Spanish
coach Xavi Pascual, this was the last test before the European Championship -
EHF EURO 2024 to be held in Germany, between January 10 and 28, 2024. The
Romanians will play in Group B, alongside Spain, Austria and Croatia. The first
two ranked teams will qualify for the so-called main groups. A 4-times world
champion in the 1960s-70s, Romania had not qualified for a European
Championship since 1996. (AMP)
