20 December 2019, UPDATE

Events commemorating anti-communist revolution of December 1989 continued in Romania./ Klaus Iohannis to be sworn in for his second term on Saturday.

Newsroom, 20.12.2019, 20:20

Commemoration. In Timişoara (western Romania), events
devoted to the December 1989 anti-communist uprising continued on Friday today.
A commemorative plaque offered by the US
president was unveiled at the former military unit in Freedom Square. Sirens
sounded at noon, to mark the day when Timisoara became the first Romanian city
free from communism. Near Bucharest, a group of descendants of Revolution
heroes, who are marching to the capital city, took part in a religious ceremony
in the village of Popeşti-Leordeni, where the ashes of the revolutionaries shot
in Timişoara and cremated in Bucharest had been disposed of, 30 years ago. On
Thursday the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the commemoration of
the Romanian Revolution, paying tribute to the heroes that sacrificed their lives
for freedom and democracy. The European Parliament also requests the Romanian
government to step up efforts to find out the truth about those events. EU
institutions and national parliaments are urged to do everything in their power
to ensure that the crimes committed by the communist regimes will never be
repeated. We have more on this after the news.

Presidency. President Klaus Iohannis will be sworn in on Saturday
before the joint chambers of Parliament. Presenting a report on his first term
in office yesterday,Klaus Iohannis said the past 5 years had seen major
challenges, perhaps the most serious of which was for Romania to divert from
its Western democratic path. In terms of foreign policy, the president
mentioned that he had focused on strengthening Romania’s role as a EU and NATO
member and on extending and reinforcing the strategic partnership with the US.
Domestically, Klaus Iohannis added, his priorities were to ensure the proper
functioning of public authorities. He reiterated that during the past 3 years,
under successive Social Democratic governments, attempts were made at hijacking
the government and weakening the state by means of undermining the judiciary,
and that he made use of all constitutional mechanisms in order to counter these
undemocratic forces. More on this after the news.

Government. The Liberal PM Ludovic Orban reiterated for Radio
Romania that requesting Parliament’s confidence is the only way for the 2020
state budget bill to be endorsed by December 31st. The PM also
promised that public sector salaries will be raised next year and presented a
number of economic decisions. Orban has also announced that the government has
frozen allowances for senior civil servants, decided that public sector
salaries and pensions can no longer be received concurrently by the same
individual, and that subsidies for political parties have been cut by 30%.
Orban promised that infrastructure investments will be increased next year. On
Monday the Government is seeking a vote of confidence in Parliament for the
state budget and social security budget bills, as well as for a bill amending
the Government Emergency Order no. 114.

Hearings. The former Romanian interior minister Carmen Dan was heard on
Friday as a witness by the Directorate Investigating Organised Crime and
Terrorism, in an investigation into the gendarme intervention during a protest
of the Romanian diaspora held on August 10, 2018. The hearings lasted six
hours, with Carmen Dan saying she did not have an active role of coordination
during the protest. The investigation was taken over by the Directorate from
the Military Prosecutor’s Office Division. Senior gendarme officers are being
probed into. On August 10, tens of thousands of people, including Romanians
living abroad, gathered outside the government building in central Bucharest to demand the resignation
of Viorica Dăncilă’s cabinet. People were disgruntled with the Social
Democrats’ repeated attacks against the justice system, and with the dismissal
of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate chief Laura Codruța Kovesi.

Workers. The Government of
Romania decided that the limit for foreign workers in 2020 stay at 30,000
people, as it was in 2019, the PM’s chief of staff Ionel Dancă announced
on Friday. The
decision took into account Romania’s economic growth potential, the workforce demand in certain sectors or professions, which
cannot be covered by Romanian workers, as well as the need to prevent
situations where foreigners work in Romania illegally. Romania is facing a
workforce shortage as large numbers of its citizens have sought employment in
other EU member states.