The Week in Review 31.10 – 06.11

A roundup of the week's main stories

România Internațional, 05.11.2016, 12:00

The strike of the healthcare staff has been declared illegal

The
Bucharest Court on Thursday ruled that the strike of the healthcare staff held
early this week was illegal. The decision can still be appealed, but it is
binding. The magistrates thus agreed with the Health Ministry officials who
claimed, among other things, that the trade unionists’ action did not comply
with the legal conditions for starting a labor conflict. The healthcare staff
went on strike on October 31, asking for higher salaries and better working
conditions. On November 1st the protest was suspended, after the
parliamentary committees approved a pay rise for the healthcare staff and the
trade unionists received assurances that the amendments would be voted in the
plenum of Parliament next week. The labour minister, Dragoş Paslaru, has warned that these pay rises could
affect the country’s economy.

The government criticizes the pay rises and the
elimination of charges proposed by Parliament.

The
Romanian government believes that the pay rises and the elimination of more than
100 charges, as proposed by Parliament proposals, will have a negative impact
on next year’s state budget.

Dacian
Cioloş: As
is customary for Romania’s Parliament before elections, a number of measures
have been passed in recent months, which raise salaries for various categories
of public sector employees, without thorough previous calculations. The total
amount of money stands at around 9 billion lei, that is more than 1% of the
GDP.

The budget
impact of the populist laws voted before the elections amounts to 2 billion
euros, which will lead to either a deeper budget deficit or to a reduction of
the funds to be allotted for investments. Moreover, the imbalances between
several categories of state employees will increase. If the bills are passed in
the form wanted by Parliament, the Government will challenge the salary law at
the Constitutional Court. In the run up to the December 11 elections, on
Tuesday the MPs in the joint budget – finance and labour committees amended the
order on the salaries of state employees and introduced new categories of staff
in the education and healthcare systems that will benefit from pay rises or
bonuses, although salaries in these fields have already been increased in the
past year by an average 30%. These pay rises were announced shortly after the
MPs passed a draft law on the elimination of more than 100 non-fiscal taxes,
including the radio and TV license fees.

The government sets maximum levels for
mandatory motor-vehicle liability insurance policies.

Wednesday’s
decision by the Romanian Government to impose certain caps, for a period of 6
months, on the mandatory car liability insurance policies, has triggered
conflicting reactions depending on the interests of the sides involved. The
National Union of Insurance and Reinsurance Companies notified the European
Commission on the 6-month freeze on car liability insurance prices, claiming
that the measure infringes on the principles of free market and competition as
stipulated in the Romanian Constitution. On the other hand, road carriers have
hailed the measures passed by the government. Moreover,
they call on Parliament to issue a new insurance law in these 6 months, before
the expiry of the government’s ordinance on capping car liability insurance
policies. Transporters also ask for the future law to ensure total transparency
as regards the calculation of tariffs for all categories of vehicles held by
natural persons and legal entities. The insurance companies that will sell
insurance policies at prices exceeding the maximum value set by the government
risk big fines. New regulations in the insurance field were adopted by the
government after the protests organized by transporters. They have frequently
contested the very high prices they had to pay especially for trucks and the
fact that car liability insurances policies are growing by the year.

Criminal prosecution to expand in case related
to the 1989 anti-communist revolution.

Almost 27 years after the fall
of the Ceausescu regime, army prosecutors have expanded in rem the
criminal proceedings in the so-called Revolution case to investigate crimes
against humanity committed after the 22nd of December 1989.
Prosecutor Marian Lazăr
explains the reasons of this decision.

Marian Lazar: It transpires from documents that are part of the case that,
in order to hold on to power, through their actions and measures, the new
political and military leadership instated after the 22nd of December
1989 caused the death, gunshot injury, physical and psychological damage and
unlawful deprivation of freedom of a large number of persons, actions that fall
into the scope of crimes against humanity.

The actions in question point
to the existence of a plan aiming to create a state of confusion among the
armed forces and thus enable the new leaders to take over power and acquire
legitimacy. According to a document from the Military Prosecutor’s Office with
the High Court of Cassation and Justice, more than 1,200 people were killed in
the events of December 1989, of whom 800 died after 22nd of
December, when the regime collapsed. More than 5,000 people were wounded and
several thousand unlawfully deprived of freedom and subjected to bad treatment.
The reopening of the Revolution case, which earned Romania a series of
convictions at the European Court of Human Rights, comes a few months after
interim prosecutor general Bogdan Licu called for the reopening of the
inquiries. According to Licu, the ruling to close the case in October 2015 was
ungrounded and illegal, and the legal classification of the deeds was wrong.