April 11, 2016 UPDATE

Romanias President Klaus Iohannis will hold consultations with leaders of the parliamentary parties on the national security laws/ A public subscription was launched for the purchase of Constantin Brancusis work “Wisdom of the Earth

Newsroom, 11.04.2016, 12:20

NATIONAL SECURITY LAWS – Romanias President, Klaus Iohannis, will hold consultations, on Tuesday and Wednesday, with leaders of the parliamentary parties on the national security laws. The Romanian President has recently said the legislation in the field should be improved, and some provisions even replaced, because they are no longer suitable in the current security context, neither at national, nor at global level. Klaus Iohannis has said the citizens rights and freedoms should be taken into consideration when drafting the new legislation. In turn, justice minister Raluca Pruna has announced that on Tuesday the Government will start debating the national security laws.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORM – Romanias technocratic prime minister, Dacian Ciolos, said the country cant be modernised and an efficient fight against corruption is impossible without a reform of the central and local public administration. He also said Romania needs an efficient administration, which should function in a transparent way. Ciolos made the statements during a debate, entitled “The Prime Ministers Hour. He has announced that, after the local elections due in June, the Cabinet will introduce a set of legislative changes aimed at reforming the public administration sector, clarifying, among other things, the role of civil servants at local and central levels and the civil service recruitment criteria. In turn, the deputy PM and Minister for Regional Development Vasile Dîncu has said the mayors who win the June local elections may attend training programmes to improve their performance.

LOCAL ELECTIONS – Romanian political parties, alliances, citizen organisations set up by ethnic minorities and independent runners may submit their candidacies for local and county councils and mayor seats, until April 26. As many as 126 parties, alliances and unions have registered their names and election symbols for the June 5 local election with the Central Election Bureau. The campaign for the local elections begins on May 6 and ends on June 4.

BRANCUSI – The Romanian Culture Minister, Vlad Alexandrescu, on Monday announced the official opening of a public subscription for the purchase of sculptor Constantin Brancusis work “Wisdom of the Earth. He mentioned he was the first to have donated money in this campaign. The owners have recently accepted the 11 million euro bid by the negotiating committee appointed by the Government of Romania. Of the total amount, the Government has announced it will contribute 5 million euro, and the balance is to be covered by public subscription. This is not common practice in Romania, and the decision has generated differences of opinions. Dating back to 1907, Wisdom of the Earth, just like works such as The Kiss and The Prayer, was created when Constantin Brancusi was at the height of his creative powers.

ECONOMY – The annual inflation rate in Romania stood at minus 3% in March, further down from the negative 2.7% in February, according to data made public by the National Statistics Institute (INS). The National Bank of Romania in February updated the inflation forecast for the year to 1.4%, up 0.3% since the previous forecast. The National Forecast Commission, in its winter forecast, maintained the expected year-end figure at 1.8% and the forecast for 2017 at 2.5%.

COAL-MINING SECTOR – Miners and power industry workers with the Oltenia Energy Complex in south-western Romania started a rally to protest the lay-off of hundreds of complex employees. They will travel over 300 km to Bucharest, to hand a list of demands to the Government members. Among other things, the unionists demand that a plan be urgently put in place to enhance the efficiency of production units and that salary schemes should be based on performance criteria. In mid-March, the management of the complex decided to reduce or suspend certain operations in all its subsidiaries, both in the power sector and in the coal-mining sector, which will entail massive redundancies. Last year the company reported losses of over 200 million euros, 30% more than in 2014.

HIROSHIMA – The foreign ministers of the G7 countries on Monday called in Hiroshima, Japan, for a world without nuclear weapons. At the end of last week the US Secretary of State John Kerry visited the memorial to the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, the city was devastated by an American atomic bomb, which left 140,000 people dead. On the other hand, the G7 foreign ministers pleaded for strengthening the fight against the IS terror group. The meeting in Hiroshima of the G7 diplomacy chiefs comes in preparation for the meeting of the G7 heads of state, scheduled to take place at the end of May in Japan.

(Translated by Ana-Maria Popescu and Diana Vijeu)