The Week in Review (April 1-7)
Click here for a review of the main events of the past week in Romania
Newsroom, 08.04.2017, 14:29
Towards a unitary pay law in Romania
The pay system in Romania is not based on a hierarchy established by taking into account the importance of work, education, seniority and professional experience. In time, this state of facts has produced abnormalities that would be hard to imagine in other EU countries. The current coalition Government formed by the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats wishes to fix the situation by drafting a unitary pay law in the public sector. The bill is to be submitted to Parliament next week and endorse by the end of its current session. The law will instate equal treatment of all those who carry out the same type of activity and have the same seniority. Another criterion is that of hierarchy, according to which the head of an institution should not be paid less than his or her subordinates. In the entire Romanian budget sector, the ratio between the smallest and the highest salary will be 1 to 12. Also, the new bill establishes a calendar of salary increases next year. The political opposition in Bucharest is contesting the measure, saying the bill is unrealistic, because there is not enough money for all the planned increases. In turn, the Governor of the Central Bank of Romania Mugur Isarescu has stated that salaries must grow, but in a controlled manner, because Romania has reached its current economic and financial balance with huge sacrifices.
Romanian Justice and Anticorruption
Political decision-makers in Bucharest are trying to amend the criminal legislation in order to put it in line with the Constitution while at the same time carrying on the fight against corruption. The Justice Minister Tudorel Toader has announced this week that he has operated a number of changes in the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, which are currently under public debate. The changes target the definition of abuse of office in keeping with a ruling issued last year by the Constitutional Court. In brief, the minister has stated that there will be no cap to the damage caused in case of abuse of office and the judge is the one deciding whether the person on trial should be punished or not. In another move, Minister Toader has announced that the line ministry has advised against the changes to the conflict of interests bill, and has come up with its own proposal, amending the provisions concerning this offense. Also, Tudorel Toader has stated that an external audit will be conducted at the General Prosecutor’s Office, the National Anticorruption Directorate and the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism, given that the activities carried out by these bodies have not been evaluated in more than ten years. The audit will establish, among other things, the number of files that each prosecutor works on, deadlines, cases reported to the European Court of Human Rights and the number of citizens who did time in prison for no reason.
Changes in the Romanian Government
Only three months after taking office, changes have occurred in the Romanian Government headed by the Social Democrat Sorin Grindeanu. On February 23rd, the ministers of justice, economy, European funds and business were replaced. Back then, the changes were operated by the Social Democratic Party, the winner of 45% of the votes cast at the parliamentary elections held in December last year. This week, it was the other partner’s turn to make changes. The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Romania (ALDE), the junior partner in the government, has appointed for the office of Minister of the Environment and Deputy Prime Minister Gratiela Gavrilescu, a former minister for the Relation with Parliament. Her former office was taken over by the leader of the ALDE group in the Senate, Viorel Ilie. A week earlier, the ALDE leadership had decided to withdraw its political support for the co-president of the party, Daniel Constantin, then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment, due to the growing divergences between him and the other co-president of the party, the Senate Speaker Calin Popescu Tariceanu.
A victim of the recent attack in London
The Romanian Ambassador to London has announced the death of the Romanian woman who had been seriously injured during the March 22nd attack in London. Thus, the death toll has risen to 5. The 31-year old Romanian had fallen into the Thames, after the attacker rammed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge. Her boyfriend, the other Romanian tourist who was wounded, was released from hospital shortly after the attack claimed by the Islamic State terrorist organization.
New Medals for Romanian Inventors
Every year, Romanian inventors return home from international exhibitions with medals for inventions with immediate application. This year too they have won many awards at the International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva, the most prestigious such event in the world. The 45th edition of the exhibition was held between the 29th of March and April 2nd. The Romanian inventors participating in the event came back home with 34 gold and 8 silver medals, as well as 10 special prizes. Also, the foreign delegations attending Romania’s Day at the Exhibition awarded the Romanian participants another 17 prizes. Romania participated in the Geneva exhibition with 40 works funded from the state budget, and another 8 funded by the inventors themselves.
In another development, the first tests on components that will be part of the biggest laser facility in the world, to be built in Magurele, near Bucharest, have started this week. The laser facility is to be rendered operational in 2019 and it will be 1000 times more powerful than any other laser that currently exists in the world.
