August 2, 2024 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 02.08.2024, 19:54
ANAF. In July, the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) exceeded a historic revenue threshold of 50 billion lei (approximately 10 billion euros), announced the Romanian Minister of Finance, Marcel Boloş. According to the minister, the level of collection in the first seven months of the year is over one hundred percent. Boloş also says that digitization tools are beginning to produce visible results and urges citizens to come up with proposals for rendering the ANAF activity more effective.
Food industry. The government has finalized the selection process for the projects benefitting from financial support as part of a multiannual national program for the development and modernization of the food industry, INVESTALIM. New plants for processing meat, sugar, oil and fruit, as well as milling and bakery factories are to be built in Romania. 41 projects were considered eligible for funding, with the total amount of investment worth some 4.5 billion lei, of which state aid accounts for around 2.7 billion lei, said agriculture minister Florin Barbu. According to prime minister Marcel Ciolacu, the strategic objective is to develop the ability to produce raw materials for the food industry originating from Romanian farmers.
Gathering. Between 12,000 and 15,000 Saxons from Europe and North America are arriving these days in Sibiu, in the center of Romania, to attend their second International Meeting. The program of the three days includes over 50 cultural events: concerts, theater performances and folk dances, film presentations, exhibitions, guided tours of the city. The organizers hope to have more participants than in the previous meeting, in 2017, when around 12,000 Saxons from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Romania, the United States and Canada attended. The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, will also participate in the event.
Roma. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis sent a message on the occasion of the European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day in which he states that efforts must be continued to condemn and actively combat ideas or behaviors that polarize, prejudice or stigmatize any kind of person or group. “We pay a pious tribute to the Roma who were victims of the genocide during the Second World War and we reaffirm our commitment to valuing and defending fundamental rights and human dignity” – wrote the president. On Friday, Romania also marked the National Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Release. The European Union welcomed Moscow’s decision to free a number of detainees considered to be unfairly persecuted as part of an extensive prisoner swap between Russia and a number of western countries. Turkey was involved in coordinating the exchange of 26 prisoners, including the American journalist Evan Gershkovich. The exchange involved persons detained in seven different countries: the US, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, Russia and Belarus. The move was hailed by the European Union, which firmly called for the release of all political detainees, France Presse reports. Russian president Vladimir Putin greeted the 8 Russian citizens freed on the Vnukovo airport in Moscow.
AI. The Artificial Intelligence Act, the first such regulation in the world, has come into force in the European Union. It seeks to ensure that AI programs used or developed in the Union are trustworthy and compliant with people’s fundamental rights. At the same time, the regulation aims to create a harmonised internal market across all member states, and the European Commission says it provides a favourable environment for innovation and investment. AI systems are to comply with strict requirements, including high quality of data sets, logging of activity, clear user information and a high level of accuracy and cyber security. The systems considered a clear risk to people’s fundamental rights will be banned, including systems or applications that manipulate human behaviour and which allow social scoring by governments or companies.
Olympic Games. On Friday, Ioana Vrînceanu and Roxana Anghel won the silver medal in the women’s coxless pair at the Paris Olympic Games, while Ionela Cozmiuc and Gianina van Groningen won the silver in the lightweight women’s double sculls. Romania has four other medals to its record, namely two gold, one silver and one bronze. The swimmer David Popovici won the gold in 200 meter freestyle, and Andrei Cornea and Marian Enache in men’s double sculls. Ancuţa Bodnar and Simona Radiş won the silver in women’s double sculls and David Popovici a bronze in the 100 m freestyle. (MI)
