The Week in Review: 24 June-1 July

The events making the headlines in Romania this week.

Roxana Vasile, 01.07.2017, 13:47

Romania has a new government

The new Romanian
Government, headed by Mihai Tudose, was endorsed by Parliament and then sworn
in on Thursday. Romania needs an alert government, focused on performance, and
the new team will have to make up for the delays caused by the previous
Government, so that the goals set in the governing programme are reached, the
new Prime Minister Mihai Tudose has stated:

Romania is
currently in a good economic situation. The economy has been growing, we have a
well-developed industry, and both incomes and consumption have also grown. What
we still lack is a serious growth in investments and revenues to the budget.

Romania’s
President Klaus Iohannis has been harsh on the ruling coalition, which, unhappy
with its former Cabinet, removed it under a no-confidence motion only after six
months after investiture, blaming it for failing to implement the governing
programme that brought victory to the Social Democrats in December 2016. The
head of state stressed the fact that, along with appointing a new Government,
the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats,
supported by the Union of Ethnic Hungarians, have changed the governing
programme too. Klaus Iohannis:

In six months,
we have passed from tax lowering to levying new taxes, from pay rises to
solidarity taxes. Such a behavior is by no means characterized by
fiscal-budgetary predictability. Dear members of the Social Democratic Party
and of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, on behalf of all Romanians I
urge you to stop this hop on-hop off.

The president signs public sector pay
law

The recent
political crisis in Bucharest has raised fears that the public sector salary
law will be left aside for a while and its implementation delayed. Moreover,
the removal of the Social-Democratic Cabinet headed by Sorin Grindeanu, who
initiated the bill in the first place, and the prospects of its being replaced
by a government of a different political colour had the pessimists believe that
the law, benefiting a large part of the population, would be forgotten.
However, everybody’s fears were dispelled when it was announced that president
Iohannis promulgated the law.

A communiqué
issued by the Presidential Administration reads that the head of state supports
the need for a sustainable increase in the salaries of public employees, in
order for their living standard to increase. The president has also stressed
the fact that it is the responsibility of the Social Democratic Party and the
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats to ensure a balanced growth and to harmonise
the income growth objective with that of maintaining Romania’s macro-economic
and budgetary stability. The public salary law stipulates that over the coming
five years, state employees’ salaries will grow by more than 50% on average.
However, the law has come under criticism from employers associations and trade
unions.

The investigation into the 2009
presidential elections is closed

The Prosecutor
General’s Office on Tuesday closed the investigation into the presidential
elections of December 2009, having failed to discover any illegal acts of abuse
of office and forgery of documents and electoral records. An inquiry began
following allegations by the journalist and political advisor Dan Andronic that
a number of high-ranking officials, including Romania’s former Prosecutor
General Laura Codruta Kovesi and the former Romanian Intelligence Service
general Florian Coldea were at the home of the former deputy prime minister
Gabriel Oprea on the evening before the second round of the presidential
elections and helped Traian Basescu win the elections. The latter won a second
term defeating his rival Mircea Geoana by a narrow margin.

A number of
politicians holding public offices in 2009 were heard by the prosecutors as
part of the case. Investigators also requested documents from state
institutions such as the Permanent Electoral Authority and the Special
Telecommunications Service. A parliamentary committee is also looking into the
2009 presidential elections.

Romania faces extreme heat

Many countries
in Europe, including Romania have been faced with a heat wave starting last
week. A yellow code alert for heat and thermal discomfort was first issued on
Wednesday in 12 counties in the west, south and centre, where temperatures
reached 33 to 36 degrees Celsius. On Thursday, the colour code alert was raised
to orange, as temperatures went up to 40 degrees. For Saturday, the authorities
even issued a red code alert in some areas, where temperatures are expected to
reach 44 degrees Celsius in the shade.

More than 800
ambulance cars and almost 300 special vehicles belonging to the Mobile Emergency Service
for Resuscitation and Extrication (SMURD) have been made
available and are ready to intervene in case of an emergency. The heat wave has
also affected the capital Bucharest. Just like last year, the local authorities
have put in place 20 air-conditioned tents with medical staff ready to provide
assistance, water and medicines to passers-by in need of help.