December 19, 2014

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Mihai Pelin, 19.12.2014, 12:00

Romania’s car market in 2014 has seen its growth for the first time in the last six years, after the car market plummeted. In the first eleven months, car sales have grown by 24.1 per cent. In terms of fuel types, Diesel cars were on top, according to Carmakers and Importers’ Association. Dacia is still in top position among the most favorite models, while following in descending order are Volkswagen, Skoda, Renault, Ford and Opel.

Unemployment rate in Romania reached 6.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2014, that is 0.2 per cent less as compared to the previous quarter, according to data made public by the National Statistics Institute on Friday. The survey also reveals that in the third quarter of 2014, men’s employment rate stood at 70 per cent, bigger than the employment rate for women, which stood at 55 per cent. The employment rate for people in the rural regions stood at nearly 64 per cent, while residents of urban regions had an employment rate standing at 61.6 per cent. A record high unemployment rate of 22.5 per cent was reported among youth aged between 15 and 24.

The Law on supporting Ukraine’s freedom, which entails a fresh package of sanctions targeting Russia, runs the risk of undermining regular cooperation between Moscow and Washington for a long time to come, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, according to RIA Novosti news agency. US President Barack Obama yesterday endorsed a bill the Congress passed last week, authorizing new sanctions to be placed against Russia. US President Barack Obama, however, specified the US administration and its European allies will keep on monitoring the situation in Ukraine and only if absolutely necessary will they make use of the regulations of the aforementioned law to impose new sanctions against Moscow. The law also allows for the expansion of military aid offered to Ukraine, an option US President Obama has not favored so far.

Commemoration events are well underway in the western Romanian city of Timisoara, to pay tribute to the heroes that lost their lives during the anti-Communist revolution. 25 years ago on December 19, tens of thousands of people took to the streets, in a sweeping outburst against the country’s communist regime. On the following day, December 20, Timisoara was proclaimed “Romania’s first communism-free city”. The events in Timisoara, which broke out as early as December 16, are described as the triggering moment of the Romanian revolution that a couple of days later reached its peak with the collapse of the Ceausescu regime. Romania was the former Eastern Bloc’s only country where the regime change meant bloodshed and where the communist leaders were executed.

European Union leaders at the European Council Summit in Brussels decided upon setting up a community Fund for strategic investments, the so-called Juncker plan, with 300 billion Euro worth of funding. The European Parliament will have to endorse the initiative by June 2015, so that investments can be activated by mid-2015. In another move, the European Union’ s heads of states and governments expressed their willingness to help Ukraine implement its political reform decisions, also stating they were prepared to decide upon a fresh package of sanctions targeting Moscow, if need be. Outgoing president Traian Basescu represented Romania at the Summit.

The state budget and social security bills for 2015 as of today are high on the agenda of the Parliament’s plenary, after going through specialized commissions. The budget structure has been designed assuming a deficit level of 1.8% of the GDP, an inflation rate of 2.2% and an economic growth rate of 2.5%. In 2015, the biggest sums of money are to be earmarked for the Labor, Finance and Agriculture Ministries, as well as to the European Funds, Transport and Economy Ministries, while the lowest sums will go to the Health and Culture Ministries, as well as to the Administration and Interior Ministry. The final vote on the budget bill is scheduled to be cast on December 21st.

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