August 18, 2015 UPDATE
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România Internațional, 18.08.2015, 12:15
The Romanian prime minister announced Tuesday that as of October 1st salaries in the healthcare system will increase by 25%. He made the announcement after a working meeting with the heath minister, Nicolae Banicioiu, the finance minister, Eugen Teodorovici and the labor minister, Rovana Plumb. According to the PM, the amount allotted from the annual budget for this increase stands at about 1.7 billion lei, that is almost 370 million euros. According to a trade union leader the salary increase of October 1st will be followed by other increases of 25% in 2016 and 2017, the target being the doubling of current salaries. The medical staff in Romania is discontent with the small salaries they have – which made most doctors go abroad. In the past 4 years alone over 7 thousand physicians decided to leave Romania and work abroad.
The big tax and fees cuts provided for in the new Fiscal Code bill will increase the budget deficit and the public debt, which will increase Romania’s dependence on external funding- the governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isarescu has warned in an interview. He underlined that the national bank was not opposed to the new code but warns on the simultaneous coming into force of 6 fiscal relaxation measures early next year. Their cumulated shock, Mugur Isarescu added, will affect economic macro-stability and might have an impact on the stability of prices. The parliamentary parties’ representatives will meet Thursday for technical talks on the new fiscal code bill, which the president Klaus Iohannis sent back to Parliament for reexamination on July 17th. Then the code will be reanalyzed in an extraordinary session in Parliament starting August 24th. The president believes the fiscal relaxation measures might have major negative consequences on the next years’ budgets. The PM claims, however, that the impact of the fiscal relaxation measures on the budget can be offset by economic growth and a more efficient tax collection.
Romania and the countries on NATO’s eastern flank want to hold a meeting in Bucharest, in November, which should discuss further security measures for the states in the region, a Polish official told Wall Street Journal. According to sources in Bucharest, the initiative is supposed to belong to the Romanian president. The meeting will be attended by officials from Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Poland has recently asked for an increased NATO military presence on the eastern flank of the Alliance meant to discourage any Russian aggression. Warsaw wants all central European states to insist, at the NATO summit to be held in July 2016, on the approval of permanent NATO military bases on the eastern border of the Alliance.
Romania’s national Olympic team obtained one gold medal, two silver medals and one bronze medal at the International Geography Olympiad held in Tver, Russia from August 10th to 18th. Romania was thus ranked 1st in the general classification. The Olympiad gathered more than 150 students from 40 countries.
On Tuesday continued the autumn session of the Baccalaureate exam in Romania. This week as many as 55 thousand high school graduates enrolled for the Baccalaureate exam will take the oral examinations. The written exams will start next week. In the June-July session over 66% of the high school graduates, namely about 106 thousand students, managed to pass the Baccalaureate exam. As compared to the same session of 2014, the number of students that passed the Baccalaureate exam increased by 7%.
The village of Sfantu Gheorghe, in the Danube Delta (in southeastern Romania) is hosting until August 23rd the 12th edition of the Anonimul international independent film festival. On Monday, the festival opened with the screening of the film “The Lobster” by Greek director Yorgos Lanthims, which won the jury’s prize at the Cannes Film Festival in spring. The festival includes the “Romanian Off” selection and an already classical competition devoted to actors who chose to direct films. The “Romanian Off” section presents Romanian films such as “The Treasure” and “Aferim”, as well as ”Bucharest Non-stop” and “Youtube Bazaar” both directed by Dan Chisu, “Vera” by Dorian Boguta, “Chuck Norris versus Communism” by Ilinca Calugareanu and “Why me?” by Tudor Giurgiu. Such films as “Respire” by Melanie Laurent and “La Mano Visible” by Gael Garcia Bernal will be screened in the section devoted to actors who chose to direct films.
