May 14, 2018

Click here for a round-up of news from Romania

Newsroom, 14.05.2018, 14:10

MOTION – The Romanian Senate is today debating and voting upon a simple motion by which the right of centre opposition calls for the resignation of education minister, Valentin Popa. The signatories, the Save Romania Union and the National Liberal Party, say that the distribution of university entrance seats has been made based on political criteria. Valentin Popa has said the distribution of free seats in higher education has been made based on several criteria, such as the correlation of specialities on the labour market. He gave IT as an example, saying universities in Romania fail to educate the necessary number of specialists, demanded by the firms active in the field. We recall that some of the best-known universities in Romania are discontent about the way in which the Education Ministry distributed the free seats among universities, in the 2018-2019 academic year.

INFLATION – In Romania, the annual inflation rate went up to 5.2% in March 2018, from 5% in the previous month, against the backdrop of a 7.2% increase in the price of non-food stuffs, of 4% in the price of services and of 2.8% in the price of services. A higher inflation rate was registered in June 2013, when consumer prices increased by 5.37%. On May 9, the National Bank of Romania revised upward to 3.6% the forecast inflation rate for the end of the year.

STATISTICS – Latvia, Greece, Estonia and Romania are the EU member states which have registered the most significant drop in investments, as compared to the GDP, since 2007, whereas Sweden, Austria and Germany have increased their investments, data made public on Monday by Eurostat show. In the 2007 – 2017 period, the most significant drop in investments (in both the public and private sectors) as compared to the GDP, was registered in Latvia (minus 16.5 percentage points), whereas Romania registered a 12.5% drop. Last year, the total volume of investments made by the EU member states amounted to some 3,100 billion Euros. The money invested in constructions accounted for half of the amount, followed by machinery, equipment, armament systems and articles related to intellectual copyright. Overall, in 2017, the total volume of investment stood at 20.1% of the GDP, as compared to 22.4% in 2007, ahead of the global financial crisis.

REMEMBRANCE DAY – A National Remembrance Day for the Martyrs of Communist Prisons is being marked in Romania on May 14. The decision is stipulated in a law promulgated last year. The day has been chosen as a remembrance of the night of May 14th to 15th 1948, when the communists who had just seized power in Romania, arrested over 10,000 Romanians who were opposed to the new regime. They were investigated, tried and thrown into prison. The detention system, similar to that in Soviet Russia was characterised by systematic physical and psychological terror. Until the overthrow of communism, in December 1989, prisons had been an instrument of political domination against all opponents: politicians of the inter-war period, the intellectual elite, clerics and religious believers.

VISIT – The president of the main opposition party in Romania, the National Liberal Party, Ludovic Orban, is today meeting with the leader of the Christian Democratic Union, chancellor Angela Merkel. The Romanian official is currently on a visit to Germany. During his three day visit, Orban is also due to meet with MPs, German businesspeople, representatives of the federal government as well as with Romanians in the Diaspora, a press release issued by the National Liberal Party writes.

DIPLOMACY– The United States is today inaugurating the embassy in Jerusalem, after a controversial decision by President Donald Trump to recognise the city as the capital of Israel. The international community considers that the final status of Jerusalem should be negotiated during a peace process with the Palestinians. Most UN member states have criticised the American decision. President Trumps decision upset and infuriated the Palestinians, who claim East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state. In Bucharest, the Romanian Foreign Ministry has rejected the EU proposal calling on the member states to refuse that their embassies in Israel be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Romanian government has already adopted a memorandum on starting procedures to move the embassy, but president Klaus Iohannis said Romanias embassy cant be moved to Jerusalem without his consent.

NORTH
KOREA – US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has said
that Washington will lift the sanctions imposed on North Korea and will
contribute to reconstructing the North-Korean economy if Pyongyang agrees to
relinquish its nuclear arsenal. The American official said the talks held
recently with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, have been warm and substantive
and he added that there would need to be complete and verifiable
denuclearisation. The declarations come ahead of the meeting scheduled for June
12 in Singapore, between US President Donald Trump and North-Korean leader, Kim
Jong-un.

JAZZ FESTIVAL – Over 80 musicians the world over will attend the Gărâna Jazz Festival, in south-western Romania, one of the best known and most popular jazz festivals in the whole of Central and Eastern Europe, which , this year, runs between July 12 and 15. According to a communiqué issued by the organisers, the musicians will have the opportunity to perform live on three stages, to win over the public with American and European jazz, world music, fusion, son cubano – all elements specific to a “musical retreat in the middle of nature. The Gărâna International Jazz Festival is organised by the Jazz Banat Cultural Foundation, a member of the European Jazz Network. In the past 20 years, over 70,000 spectators and many outstanding foreign musicians have shared a special experience, that of listening to avant-garde jazz music in a small Romanian village, under the sky.(Translated by D. Vijeu)