April 17, 2023 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 17.04.2023, 19:28

Easter — The majority Orthodox Christians along the Greek-Catholics in Romania started the Bright Week on Monday, following Sunday’s Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The Monday of the Bright Week is also called White Monday and is said to be the day when the Gates of Heaven and forgiveness open. This week everything is under the sign of light, the symbol of Christs Resurrection. The usual greeting has been replaced since Sunday with a greeting-confession “Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!” which expresses faith in the Resurrection. The Resurrection of Christ is the greatest celebration in the Christian world, being celebrated for three days.

Cereals — Poland’s and Hungary’s decision to temporarily ban Ukrainian grain imports, accused of destabilizing agricultural markets, is “unacceptable”, the European Commission said, while adding that it is “considering” a second aid package for farmers in the affected countries. Meanwhile, the Slovakian government also approved the establishment of a ban on imports of some agricultural products from Ukraine. In May 2022 the EU suspended for a year the customs duties on all imports from Ukraine and allowed it to export its grain stocks after the closure of maritime routes as a result of the war launched by Russia. The neighboring European states have seen increased arrivals of corn, wheat or sunflowers from Ukraine, which led to the filling of granaries due to logistical problems and to the fall of local prices. The situation has generated protests by farmers and led to the resignation of the Polish Agriculture Minister. On March 20, Brussels offered to draw 56.3 million Euros from the EUs agricultural crisis reserve to support affected farmers in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. But at the end of March, five countries (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) requested additional aid to support farmers who have suffered losses.

Speed – The traffic police from all over Europe are carrying out, by the end of the week, a large-scale operation to verify compliance with the legal speed and to prevent accidents caused by excessive speed. As part of the European action called “Speed”, the Romanian traffic policemen will carry out, on Friday, a control operation in which they will focus on detecting those who exceed the legal speed. All the traffic surveillance and speed measurement equipment of the police will be used. The General Police Inspectorate in Bucharest announces that in Romania, since the beginning of the year, exceeding the legal speed has caused almost 200 serious road accidents, resulting in over 80 deaths and approximately 150 seriously injured people. Moreover, speeding caused almost 20% of all serious accidents at the national level, according to the data presented by the General Police Inspectorate.

Education – The Romanian Parliament will resume these days the debates on the new education laws, which bring changes to the higher and pre-university education systems. Some of the changes refer to establishing a high school entrance examination, separate from the National Assessment, and to the introduction of an additional test, different from the subjects studied for the Baccalaureate exam. At the debates held so far in the specialized committees, the representatives of students, parents and teachers have criticized these changes, as well as the absence of clear provisions for combating violence in schools. The law package should be adopted by the beginning of next month at the latest by the Chamber of Deputies, as a first body notified.

Motion – On Tuesday, the Romanian Chamber of Deputies debates the simple motion initiated by opposition MPs against the Agriculture Minister, considered responsible for the fact that Romania did not obtain sufficient European funds to support the farmers affected by the imports from Ukraine. The Agriculture Minister Petre Daea was convinced that the European funds for compensating the losses suffered by farmers would be supplemented. The 10 million Euros initially allocated were doubled by a contribution from the state budget. The money will be given strictly to those farmers who had grains in stock on February 1, and not to merchants, the minister said. (LS)