August 7, 2017 UPDATE

The French President, Emmanuel Macron, will pay a visit to Romania on August 24, at the invitation of his Romanian counterpart, Klaus Iohannis/ The net average salary in Romania stands at 520 Euro

Leyla Cheamil, 07.08.2017, 19:50

VISIT – The French President, Emmanuel Macron, will pay a visit to Romania on August 24, at the invitation of his Romanian counterpart, Klaus Iohannis, the Presidential Administration announced on Monday. The agenda of talks will include ways to boost and deepen the bilateral relationship under the Strategic Partnership as well as major issues of European and international interest. The visit was agreed upon during a bilateral meeting between the two heads of state, on the sidelines of the European Council of June 23, when Emmanuel Macron accepted the invitation extended by Klaus Iohannis to continue their dialogue in Bucharest, the Presidential Administration also says.

PARLIAMENTARY SESSION – Parliament will meet in an extraordinary session in Bucharest on Tuesday to vote on some emergency ordinances issued by the government last week. The emergency ordinances provide, among others, for increasing pensions only by adjusting them to the inflation rate, and for increasing the salaries of some Interior Ministry personnel. The government has also decided to establish a ceiling of some 1,900 Euro per month for the child rearing indemnity, as of September.

SALARIES – The National Institute of Statistics released new data on Monday. Gross average wages went up by 0.8% in June, as compared to the previous month, up to almost 730 Euro, with net average salaries reaching 520 Euro. The highest wages are still in the IT and telecom industries, about 1,300 Euro, while the lowest are still in the hospitality industry, around 300 Euro. Data for May and June indicate that the increase in income was due to rainfall revenue.

ANONIMUL FESTIVAL – The 14th ANONIMUL International Film Festival kick-started in the small town of Sfantu Gheorghe, in the Danube Delta on Monday. The special guest of the festival this year is the Mexican director Michel Franco, whose film “April’s Daughter earned him the “Un Certain Regard Award at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. The one-week festival will end with an award gala, with the awards been established based on the public’s vote.

UNTOLD FESTIVAL– The UNTOLD electronic music festival in Cluj, the biggest in the country, came to a close on Monday. The event is estimated to have gathered the largest audience since its inception in 2015. Around 200 Romanian and foreign artists performed on the 10 stages, the largest of which is 100 meters long and over 35 meters high. The festival was designated the best European festival at its first edition. In 2016, it had an audience of 300,000.

TENNIS – Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, WTA no.2, has been designated top second seed in the WTA tournament in Toronto, Canada, with 2.4 million dollars in prize money up for grabs. Halep goes straight to the second round, where she will meet the winner of the game between the American player Madison Keys, WTA no. 21, and Croatias Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, WTA no. 30. No less than five Romanian players feature in the qualifiers, Irina Begu, Sorana Cîrstea, Monica Niculescu, Ana Bogdan and Patricia Ţig.

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HEATWAVE –A code yellow alert against thunderstorms, torrential rain and hail has been issued for central, eastern and northern Romania, as well as for mountainous and hilly areas. The alert is valid until Wednesday. Rainwater may exceed 20 l/square meter in places, and even 40 l/square meter. The temperature-humidity comfort index will still be close to the critical threshold of 80 units in places, in the south of the country. Maximum temperatures will range between 24 and 36 degrees Celsius.