July 21, 2023

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 21.07.2023, 13:55

Budget deficit. The
leaders of the ruling coalition in Bucharest will meet on Monday to discuss the
plan of fiscal measures the government intends to implement from autumn to
balance the budget and secure further funds for education and healthcare. The
business community calls for transparency in the adoption of the measures to
reduce the budget deficit. According to business, the result of the fiscal
measures envisaged by the government will lead to price rises, a higher
inflation rate and redundancies. The government is expected to further increase
excise duties, eliminate tax facilities and increase other duties in order to
meet its budget deficit target and avoid losing billion euros worth of EU
funding. The president of the National Council of Small and Medium Sized
Enterprises Florin Jianu has urged the government to very carefully analyse the
measures it is considering and especially their economic, social and political
consequences and has warned that small and medium sized companies are worried
about the drop in domestic demand and the increasingly expensive loans.

Care homes. The checks conducted at
care homes for older persons, children and persons with disabilities around
Romania are in their final stage and the results have been made public by the
government. Following inquiries, 47 criminal cases were opened and more than
10,500 fines were levied, while 18 care homes were closed and 110 suspended.
Prime minister Marcel Ciolacu asked the labour minister Simona Bucura-Oprescu to dismiss all heads of
County Agencies for Payments and Social Inspection, including the Bucharest
branch, until disciplinary investigations are finalised. He said firm measures
were needed against those state employees who were aware of and tolerated the
irregularities taking place at these centres. He also asked the labour minister
to come up with draft legislation to address the situation as soon as possible,
and on the investment minister Adrian
Câciu to make sure that care homes benefit from European funding. The inquiries
have been conducted in the wake of revelations of organised criminal groups
exploiting and abusing residents of care homes for older persons and persons
with disabilities, including beatings, insults, starvation, forced labour and
denying them basic hygiene conditions.

Grains. Russia
wants to provoke a global food crisis by pulling out of the deal on the export
of Ukrainian cereals via the Black Sea, said the Romanian foreign minister Luminiţa Odobescu at a meeting
of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. She said member states acknowledged Romania’s efforts to facilitate the
export of Ukrainian grain and offered to help consolidate the port and railway
infrastructure on Romanian territory to prevent a blockage of the transit of
grain. The European Commission also said that the Romanian authorities can
unilaterally decide to create special corridors for the transport of Romanian
cereals to the port of Constanţa, following a request to this effect made by
Romanian farmers. There are fears that Romania’s biggest Black Sea port may become
overcrowded as Romanian farmers have announced better crops than last year,
while the transit of Ukrainian cereals will generate even more traffic.

Film. Tudor
Giurgiu’s film Freedom has made the official selection of the Sarajevo Film
Festival, vying for the Heart of Sarajevo trophy. Inspired by true events, the
film tells a little known incident that took place in Sibiu during the 1989
anti-communist revolution. Last year, when it was still in production, Freedom
won the jury prize at CineLink
Industry Days, the Sarajevo festival’s programme for projects under
development. The film was first screened at the Transylvania International Film
Festival in Cluj Napoca, winning the audience award for most popular Romanian
film. The Sarajevo Film Festival is the biggest event of its kind in
south-eastern Europe and one of the biggest in Europe. It was founded in 1995,
during the siege of Sarajevo at the time of the Bosnian war.

Heat. This
month may have been the hottest July on record owing to the unusually high ocean
temperatures and the heat waves seen in a number of regions in the northern
hemisphere, according to the Copernicus Observatory. Large areas in southern
Europe, China and North America have been struggling with extreme temperatures
in recent days. A red alert is in place in Greece, where all archaeological
sites, including the Acropolis in Athens, are closed during the hottest hours until
Sunday. Wild fires are also wreaking havoc in the Athens region and on Rhodes
Island, where a number of settlements and resorts have been evacuated. Almost
80 Romanian fire fighters helped extinguish the fires near Athens on Thursday. Italy,
Spain, France, Croatia and Serbia are also affected by extreme heat. Meteorologists
are warning of a new heat wave in Europe, with temperatures set to pass 40
degrees Celsius, and the European Space Agency saying Europe may next week see
the highest temperatures ever recorded on this continent. (CM)