July 12, 2023
A roundup of local and international news
Newsroom, 12.07.2023, 13:58
Summit — NATO reiterated the fact that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance, said the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Vilnius summit. However, the moment of accession and the conditions that need to be fulfilled by Kyiv have not been established. The leaders of the NATO member states decided to simplify Ukraines accession procedures and to boost the total support that the Alliance will continue to provide to Kyiv in the war to free the territory occupied by Russia. Jens Stoltenberg announced that the decisions of the allies change Ukraines accession from a two-stage process to a single-stage one, ensure that the Ukrainian military will continue to receive support and that the Ukrainian officials will have a seat at the table of discussions through the formation of a new NATO-Ukraine Council. Attending the meeting, Romania’s President, Klaus Iohannis, stated that Romania will obtain a consolidation of NATOs eastern flank and increased attention for the Black Sea area, including for the neighboring Republic of Moldova. Today, a meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of heads of state and government is scheduled in Vilnius, in the presence of Sweden, as a guest, and of the partners from the Indo-Pacific region, Australia, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand. Vilnius is also hosting the first meeting of the NATO-Ukraine council in a new format.
Training — A coalition made up of 11 states will begin to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets in August in Denmark, while a training center will also be set up in Romania. “We hope that we will be able to see results at the beginning of next year,” Denmarks interim defense minister Troels Lund Poulsen told reporters on the sidelines of the NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. NATO members Denmark and the Netherlands led an international coalition effort to train pilots and support staff, maintain aircraft, and eventually supply Ukraine with F-16s. Belgium and Luxembourg will also participate in this program, supported by the US, while France and Great Britain are providing assistance. The air forces of the latter and Luxembourg do not own F-16 aircraft. Currently, Romania has 17 F-16 aircraft and will acquire another 32 from Norway.
Schengen — The European Parliament will vote, today, the resolution based on a petition filed by the Romanian civil society which challenges the legality of Austrias veto regarding Romania’s accession to the Schengen area. MEP Vlad Gheorghe, a member of the Renew Europe political group, said that if it passed, the resolution would legally establish for the first time that what happened to Romania and Bulgaria represented discrimination. He emphasized that, also for the first time, compensation is being discussed for the financial losses that the two countries have incurred, as well as for environmental losses. The European Commission will be obliged to subsequently evaluate the losses incurred due to Austrias veto and to propose legal mechanisms by which Romania and Bulgaria will be compensated. We remind you that, at the end of last year, in the Justice and Home Affairs Council, a unanimous decision failed to be adopted in relation to the entry into the Schengen area of the two EU member countries, after Austria and the Netherlands opposed it. The Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, motivated his country’s stand by bringing into question the illegal migrants who arrived in his country, many of whom would have come through Romania and Bulgaria, as he claimed, although the data is contradicted by the authorities in Bucharest. In turn, the Netherlands stated that it supported Romanias accession, but not together with that of Bulgaria.
Football — Romanias football champions, Farul Constanţa, meet today, at home, Sheriff Tiraspol from the Republic of Moldova, in the first preliminary round of the Champions League. The return match takes place in a week’s time. If it is eliminated in the first preliminary round, the team coached by the great former Romanian international footballer Gică Hagi will continue in the Conference League. Three other Romanian teams are already present in this competition. In the 2nd preliminary round, CFR Cluj, the team with the highest coefficient in the UEFA ranking, ensured its presence for the sixth consecutive year in the European cups and will meet Adana Demirspor, from Turkey. Sepsi, the winner of Romania’s Cup and Supercup, will play against CSKA Sofia from Bulgaria. The opponent of the vice-champions FCSB is CSKA 1948 Sofia, another team from Bulgaria. These three games are scheduled for July 27, and the return match one week later.
Statistics – The average net salary in Romania fell to 4,543 lei (approx. 915 Euros) in May this year, 0.5% less than in April 2023, the National Institute of Statistics (INS) announced on Wednesday. The average gross salary was 7,229 lei (approx. 1,460 Euros), 1.1% lower than in April 2023. The highest values of the average net salary were recorded in the IT service-provision field, and the smallest values in the hospitality industry. Compared to May 2022, the average net salary increased by 15.7%. In May, in most activities in the economic sector, the level of the average net salary decreased as a result of the granting, in the previous months, of occasional awards, rights in kind and money aid, sums from the net profit and from other funds. Also, the decreases in the average net salary were caused by production failures or lower receipts (depending on contracts/projects), as well as by the employment of personnel with lower than average salary earnings, from some economic activities, the aforementioned source states. (LS)
