December 28, 2022 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 28.12.2022, 20:00

PENSIONS – The Government of Romania on Wednesday passed a decree
on reforming the special pensions awarded to certain categories of
professionals such as magistrates, military, diplomats or employees of the
Court of Accounts. Labor Minister Marius Budăi explained that the main
provisions include adjusting the base calculation percentage used for
calculating pensions from 80% to 65% of income, taking into account only
permanent sources of income and making sure no pension exceeds the total
income. Depending on each category of professionals, the minimum seniority
period required in the field of activity will go up or the minimum subscription
level will match that in the public system. The Labor Minister gave assurances
that talks with the World Bank and European partners will continue. When the
document is submitted for debate in early February, all provisions will be
clear, the Romanian official said. Reforming the special pension system is one
of the objectives the government committed to achieve under the National
Recovery and Resilience Plan by the end of this year. Also on Wednesday, the
government announced it would introduce additional taxes for energy companies
that reported high profits in the recent period marked by the crisis. The draft
law stipulates a 60% additional tax on large profits reported this year by
companies and refineries in the oil, natural gas and coal sectors. State
Secretary with the Finance Ministry, Mihai Diaconu, explained that the tax will
apply to any source of income that exceeds the average of profits in the last
four years by over 20%.

POLL – The latest poll conducted by INSCOP on the performance
of Romanian political parties indicates that two of the three parties in the
ruling coalition, namely the Social Democratic Party and the National Liberal
Party, lost percentages in December, while the nationalist Alliance for the
Union of Romanians, in opposition, grew by 2%. The poll conducted in December
indicates that the Social Democrats lost almost 5%, but is still ahead in
voting intentions, with 31.5%. The Liberals are in second place with 20.2%,
followed by the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, with 18.1%, and the Save
Romania Union, also in opposition, with 10.9%. The junior partner in the ruling
coalition, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, maintains its
usual percentage of 5% which would allow it to enter Parliament. The INSCOP
experts say the data were collected both before and after Romania’s bid to join
the Schengen free-movement area was rejected, on 8th December. The
INSCOP director Remus Ştefureac said the data showed a zigzag performance by
the parties, with no clear, predictable trends yet for 2024, when presidential,
parliamentary, local and European elections will take place in Romania.

DEFICIT -
Romania’s budget deficit reached 4.2% of the GDP in the first 11 months of the year,
according to the Finance Ministry, a 0.5% drop compared to the same period of
2021. The deficit target for 2022 is 5.8% of the GDP.

POWER PLANT – Mass Global Energy Rom, a company based
in Jordan, has become the owner of the Mintia thermal power plant in Hunedoara County,
in central Romania, after making the final payment of over 80 million euros as
established after it won a tender held in August. The new owner promised that
in the next three years, the plant would see an extensive development process,
with investments of over 1 billion euros and the creation of new jobs.

ACCIDENT – One of the two Ukrainians who went missing in the
Maramureş Mountains, in north-western Romania, was found dead by a local
resident. The border police and mountain rescue services had resumed searches
on Tuesday only to abandon them again owing to difficult weather conditions. On
Saturday, a group of six Ukrainians called the emergency number saying they
were stranded at an altitude of 1,800 meters. They had been trying to cross the
mountains from Ukraine into Romania. Four were rescued by the Romanian rescue
services. Another is still missing. After Ukraine was invaded by Russia on 24th
February, Kyiv declared a general mobilization and ordered the martial law,
which bans men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country, with many
trying to do so illegally. (VP)