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| THE WEEK IN REVIEW 22-28/02/2010 |
| (2010-02-26) |
| Last updated: 2010-03-01 13:49 EET |
Romania has been heavily affected by floods and landslides which have caused serious damage. Scores of localities were cut off from the electricity and drinking water supplies. Numerous national and county roads, as well as hundreds of hectares of farm land were covered in water. Local authorities in the affected areas are permanently monitoring the situation and trying to assist the population.
The Romanian cabinet this week adopted new measures to combat unemployment and support the business environment. One of the measures provides for companies that hire unemployed people to be exempted from paying social insurance for a period of 6 months. Officials say this measure could help save about 50,000 jobs this year. This comes against a background of insecurity with many fearing that the number of the unemployed in Romania could reach one million. Employers’ associations believe, however, that the only measures that genuinely helped companies are the measures related to temporary redundancy and the extension of the car scrapping program meant to renew the car fleet to cover legal entities as well.
The unified pension bill has come under debate in the Romanian Senate. The labor and social protection minister Mihai Seitan has re-emphasized the need to reform the system:
‘’Every year, pension expenses grow more and more compared to the GDP. In 2009, pensions accounted for more than 8% of GDP expenses. We have annual chronic deficits. Contributions paid by persons who have a public system insurance have long ceased to cover pension-related expenses. Pensions are not high in Romania, but there are just too many pensioners.’’
Under the new bill, which is supposed to come into force next year, the retirement age in Romania will go up to 65. This will apply to men by 2014 and to women by 2030. The bill also provides for tougher conditions for granting disability pensions and discourages early retirement which has seen a tripling of cases every year. The need for a general reform of the pension system in EU states has also been upheld by Jose Manuel barroso, the head of the European Commission. He emphasized that the current system is no longer sustainable and may collapse as a result of an increase in life expectancy and a drop in the birth rate. An increasing number of European states are considering increasing the legal retirement age. The idea has been met with criticism from employees who have held street protests in response.
Romania has received the 3rd and 4th payments worth about 2.5 billion euros of a loan agreement signed with the International Monetary Fund. Half of the money will be used to cover the budget deficit, while the rest will go into the consolidation of the country’s currency reserve and the support of the exchange rate. The foreign funding package agreed on by Romania with the IMF, the EU, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development stands at about 20 billion euros.
Emil Boc, who attended an energy security summit in Budapest has reaffirmed that for Romania, the Nabucco gas pipeline project remains a priority, but underlined that Bucharest would consider any other imitative that could contribute both to Romania’s and to the EU’s energy security. Boc explained that the decision of central European countries to promote a joint energy policy aims at avoiding crises similar to the one that occurred in early 2009, when Russian-Ukrainian divergences temporarily blocked Russian gas deliveries to Europe. The head of the Romanian government also attended the Danube Strategy summit held in Budapest. Emil Boc then travelled to Sofia to discuss with his Bulgarian counterpart the development of bilateral economic ties and cross border cooperation.
A Romanian military was killed and four wounded on Tuesday, when a makeshift mine exploded during a patrolling mission in southern Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold. Chief sergeant Florin Badiceanu is the 12th Romanian military who has fallen in the line of duty in Afghanistan since 2003, when Bucharest sent its first troops to help US allies. About 50 troops have been wounded. Romania has 1020 troops deployed in Afghanistan and last month it decided to increase their number by 600. Romanian troops participate in the NATO Security International Assistance Force aimed at stabilising and reconstructing the country, torn by war for more than 3 decades. Romanian troops also contribute to Operation Enduring Freedom directed against Taliban fighters.
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2025-04-03
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