February 1, 2023 UPDATE

Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 01.02.2023, 20:06

SESSION The Senate and Chamber of
Deputies in Bucharest on Wednesday went on their first Parliamentary session
this year. Draft laws on complying with the terms assumed through the National
Plan of Recovery and Resilience are high on the agenda. Leaders of the main
ruling parties, the Social Democratic and the National Liberal Party, have also
announced among their legislative priorities, several projects on education and
the special pensions reform. The Liberals want to raise the ceiling for pension
taxation and the local and Parliamentary election of 2024 to merge. The
Social-Democrats have announced they are working on a new ruling programme and
the Social-Democratic president Marcel Ciolacu who is going to take over the position
of Prime Minister, has announced the idea of cutting labour taxes and
increasing the taxation level for the companies with huge profits. The
opposition USR and Force of the Right have tabled a simple motion against
Interior Minister Lucian Bode entitled Romania deserves better than thieves on
public jobs, amid forgery allegation concerning his PhD thesis. The Senate has
endorsed a declaration reiterating its commitment to strengthening legislative
efforts to commemorate the Holocaust victims and underlines the need for the
involvement of all state institutions and citizens so that human rights may be
observed.

PROTEST Roughly one thousand employees from Romania’s education
system took to the streets on Wednesday to protest the low salaries in their
line of work. According to the protesters, the nonteaching staff makes the only
category of state employees who hasn’t yet reached the pay level stipulated by
the 2022 law. Salaries for nonteaching employees are ranging between 366 and
468 euros and trade unions in the country’s education system have called on the
government to endorse a law allowing the nonteaching personnel to get proper
pay.

UKRAINE The Russian invasion forces are making small progress on
the front in eastern Ukraine – international news agencies report. Their main
target remains the city of Bakhmut, which they have been trying to seize for
months without success. Both Bakhmut and the neighboring villages of Kliškiivka
and Kurdiumivka, located south of the city, came under new Russian fire.
According to the Ukrainian military, though, the Russians allegedly got stuck
near the town of Avdiivka, the second focal point of their attacks in the
disputed Donetsk region. Troop movements are also registered in Lyman, a city
recaptured by the Ukrainians in October. In an unusually detailed intelligence
update, British Ministry of Defense experts, who are constantly monitoring the
situation on the front, note that Russian forces have advanced several hundred
meters across a river towards the town of Vuhledar, and recorded made small wins.
Specialists say that Moscow’s troops would like to attract the Ukrainian forces
defending Bakhmut to Vuhledar.

VISIT The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, will be paying
a formal visit to Baku, Azerbaijan, on February 2-3, at the invitation of his
counterpart, Ilham Aliyev. The two presidents will open the Ministerial Meeting
of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council.
The visit by the Romanian president comes in continuation of the very
good talks held with the Azerbaijani president, in Bucharest, in December 2022,
on the occasion of their participation in the signing ceremony of the Agreement
between the Governments of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and
Hungary regarding the Strategic Partnership in the field of green energy
development and transport. In Baku, the state of implementation of regional
interconnection projects such as the submarine electricity transmission cable
will be assessed and the initiation of similar projects in the digital field
will be addressed. Azerbaijan is the first country in the South Caucasus region
with which Romania raised bilateral relations to the level of Strategic
Partnership in 2009.

(bill)