December 27, 2025

A roundup of local and world news

Newsroom, 27.12.2025, 14:00

New pediatric psychiatry hospital in Bucharest

The foundation has been laid down for Romania’s largest pediatric psychiatry clinic, built by Bucharest City Hall jointly with the Metropolis foundation through a public-private partnership.

Bucharest’s Mayor General, Ciprian Ciucu, wrote on the City Hall Facebook page that Bucharest needs new, safe hospitals with state-of-the-art equipment and doctors who are properly valued. For a second medical unit built from scratch, Sector 6 City Hall has finalized the tender for design and execution, and secured funding guaranteed by the European Commission. The site has been connected to utility networks, all studies and urban planning documentation have been approved, including the government decision establishing the hospital as a legal entity, and after contract signing, the order to start works will be issued.

Traffic resumes temporarily on Friendship Bridge

Traffic has resumed temporarily in both directions on the “Friendship Bridge”, which connects Romania and Bulgaria, until January 8, 2026. Bulgarian authorities have decided to open both directions of travel for all categories of vehicles on the bridge spanning the Danube between Giurgiu and Ruse during the holiday period, the Bucharest Foreign Ministry reported.

The bridge has been undergoing major repairs on the Bulgarian side since July 2024, and the works are estimated to last two years, until the summer of next year. Measuring 2.8 km in length, the “Friendship Bridge” was opened to traffic in 1954. At that time, it was the largest combined road and rail bridge in Europe. It was built in two and a half years, with the interest and support of the USSR.

Security forces deployed for the Christmas mini-holiday

Some 23,000 employees of Romania’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (police officers, gendarmes, firefighters, emergency service personnel and border police) will be deployed every day during the Christmas mini-holiday, according to Interior Ministry spokesperson Monica Dajbog. An average of 2,000 traffic police officers will monitor roads that typically become congested during such periods to ensure smooth traffic flow and assist motorists. They will deploy approximately 400 radar devices to detect drivers who pose a threat to traffic participants. Monica Dajbog noted that police officers will continue operations during these days to prevent and combat illegal trade in dangerous pyrotechnic articles.

For the roughly 10,000 public events organized during this period, which could draw nearly one million people, police and gendarmes will be mobilized to prevent incidents that could affect citizens’ safety. Supporting citizens spending the mini-holiday in the mountains, approximately 170 mountain gendarmes will be ready to intervene daily.

Also during the Christmas mini-holiday, approximately 3,300 border police will be mobilized to protect borders, prevent cross-border crime and ensure smooth control at Romania’s external borders.

Fire in Giurgiu

Dozens of people self-evacuated or were evacuated by firefighters from a residential block in the southern Romanian city of Giurgiu following a fire that broke out in one of the apartments. The owner was not home when the fire started; neighbors noticed the smell of smoke and called 112, according to a press release issued Saturday by the Giurgiu Emergency Situations Inspectorate. Firefighters rescued a puppy left alone in the affected apartment; the furniture burned completely, other items were damaged, and the apartment walls along with the stairwell were affected by smoke. The fire was most likely caused by an unattended candle.

Medical services e-platform

The new IT platform for Romania’s National Health Insurance House, which manages medical services, is partially operational. For now, it is not accessible to the general public, as the large-scale data transfer has not yet been completed.

Health Minister Alexandru Rogobete explains that the system will become fully operational after mid-next year and will streamline the relationship between patients, on one hand, and doctors, hospitals, pharmacies or other medical units, on the other. The data transfer from the old platform to the new one is already underway; “It takes quite a while, and we chose to move the data during this holiday period, when the number of medical services is low and it doesn’t affect medical activity”, Minister Rogobete stated.

Migrant trafficking

A Romanian citizen caught transporting three Egyptians and a Syrian by car has been remanded in custody for 30 days for migrant trafficking, the General Border Police Inspectorate reports. Romanian and Bulgarian border police stopped the 21-year-old driver of a Romanian-registered car during a joint check. The check uncovered four foreigners without documents required for travel in the Schengen area. They were handed over to Bulgarian border authorities.

Feast Day

Orthodox and Eastern–Catholic Christians in Romania celebrate Saint Stephen on Saturday, the first Christian martyr. He was a contemporary of Jesus Christ’s apostles and one of the seven deacons chosen to serve in the first Christian community in Jerusalem. Stephen was accused of blasphemy by Jewish clerics and stoned to death. The New Testament records his last words, asking God to forgive his killers. ​

Increase in local taxes

City halls across Romania have until the end of the year to set the value of local taxes and fees for 2026, or they risk sanctions including the loss of funds, under an emergency decree adopted by the Government.

In Bucharest, the General Council has set the taxable value of buildings to rise from nearly 1,500 lei per square meter this year to 2,677 lei in 2026, an increase of about 80%.

Owners of buildings in Timișoara (west) will pay more by the same percentage, as the city hall has also eliminated reductions based on building age and other benefits for certain owner categories.

In Cluj-Napoca (north-west), the municipality will apply increases between 58% and 71% depending on the area, while in Constanța (south-east), the Local Council has approved tax hikes between 50% and 80%, along with rises in other local fees.

Starting 2027, taxation will be based on market value, as per the reform committed under the Recovery and Resilience Plan. (VP)