🇷🇴Week of November 2

Romania will abolish the minimum tax on turnover from 1 January, Prime Minister Luca Niculescu announced, saying the government is preparing a multibillion-euro plan to relaunch the economy. Niculescu said Romania must produce more. He acknowledged that what companies have been subjected to is unfair.1234

The relaunch plan comes with three directions the prime minister is proposing, and the cabinet intends to hold quarterly consultations with business representatives on the measures. The announcements were made as the government set out its economic package.12

The removal of the minimum turnover tax is dated to 1 January 2027 in the announcement, giving companies a fixed date for the change. The measure applies to the tax calculated on companies' revenue rather than profit.4

The Romanian government is extending salary payments from the wage claims guarantee fund for employees of the Liberty Galați steel plant, formerly Sidex, by six months. The measure covers 2,400 workers at the plant. The extension runs alongside a restructuring plan and talks with investors interested in the combine.123

Negotiations are under way with five potential investors in the Galați steel combine. The salary payment extension is meant to hold the plant's workforce in place while those talks proceed.43

The president of the Galați county council warned that cutting the Liberty steel plant off from electricity could produce a crisis with serious social consequences. The warning came as the government worked on the wage extension for the plant's 2,400 employees.5

A bomb threat on a Wizz Air flight arriving at Bucharest's Otopeni airport from Milan activated the airport's crisis cell, and the alert was not confirmed. A passenger gave an account of the incident. The same day brought a further threat against a Tarom aircraft on the Prague-Bucharest route, with 102 passengers aboard.1234

The National Airports Company (CNAB) said procedural measures were being applied at airport level after the threat against the Tarom aircraft flying from Prague to Bucharest. The Otopeni alert was the third bomb threat handled at the airport. The threats came during a wave of false bomb alerts that diverted or placed dozens of European flights under military escort on Thursday.5678

The European Union activated its aviation security information-sharing mechanism in response to the alerts. Two flights in Bucharest were targeted. A group calling itself Statul Masculin claimed the wave of bomb threats.77

The pilot of an aircraft targeted in the bomb-alert wave refused an order, and France scrambled fighter jets while a prosecutor opened an investigation. The threats affected 20 flights, and a message warned that 'your sky will become red.'910

The Competition Council won the first court ruling in the series of cases brought by the ten banks it fined over the setting of the ROBOR benchmark. The court rejected CEC Bank's request to suspend the sanction the council applied, according to Mediafax, which cited exclusive sources for the bank's position.123

The ruling is the first judicial decision in the ROBOR case, Profit.ro reported. The ten fined banks had each asked the courts to suspend application of the council's decision while their challenges proceed.245

The National Bank of Romania rejected changing the rules governing ROBOR, with Governor Mugur Isărescu's statement explaining the position that "the banks jumped the gun." The central bank said there are no grounds to revise the framework.63

Economica.net reported that the central bank had prepared the act for changing ROBOR, a development it flagged as important for all Romanians with loans. The same outlet carried the central bank's statement that there are no grounds to revise the framework.76

Health Minister Alexandru Rogobete called public hospitals around the country posing as an anonymous patient seeking a neurology appointment for his "grandmother". At Colentina hospital he was recommended a private clinic instead, and patients are being redirected from the outpatient clinic onward, he said.123

The calls led to checks at public hospitals, which the minister said turned up irregularities in how appointments are handled. Rogobete described the pattern as patients being redirected from the ambulatory clinic to another destination rather than treated within the public system.42

The experiment and the inspections that followed were reported by Stirile ProTV, Digi24, TVRInfo.ro, Euronews România and Mediafax on the same day, all describing the anonymous calls and the resulting hospital controls.52413

Romania's foreign ministry (MAE) rejected any political instrumentalisation of the presence of Romanian citizens in European Union countries, after the leader of Germany's AfD accused Romanian immigrants of exploiting the German welfare system. The ministry said it was acting to protect Romanians abroad against discriminatory statements made in Germany.123

AfD leader Alice Weidel said Romanians are "robbing our social system," remarks that followed a documentary by German public broadcaster MDR about Romanian families settled in Germany and the social benefits they receive. The film renewed debate in Germany and Romania over welfare payments to EU citizens.45

Sorin Grindeanu demanded that Weidel withdraw the accusations and said her words revive an old mentality. Rareș Fritz told Weidel to apologise to the Romanians who contribute to the German social system, and Labour Minister Marius Budăi said Romanians in Germany work, contribute and deserve respect.6478

Bolojan called Weidel's statement unacceptable, saying xenophobic and extremist rhetoric has nothing to do with real patriotism. The reactions came a day before the foreign ministry's formal response.92

Iliana Iotova won Bulgaria's presidential election, exit polls indicated, with the pro-Russian candidate credited with 57.4 percent of the vote. Her opponent conceded defeat. The vote followed a first round in which no candidate won outright, sending the contest to a runoff a week later.123

The campaign was marked by security fears and divisions over the war in Ukraine, and Black Sea drone attacks on ships shaped the contest. A journalist in Sofia framed the choice for Bulgaria as one between Russia and the West. Iotova, a former journalist, becomes the country's first woman president.456

Iotova is close to Prime Minister Rumen Radev, who has been described as pro-Russian. Radev earlier rejected Bulgarian accusations that Romania provoked Russia into new Black Sea drone attacks, saying accusations require clear evidence, not slogans.76

Attributed claim: Coverage differed in how it labelled Iotova and how far it went in calling the result. Digi24 and HotNews.ro described her as the pro-Russian candidate and, in HotNews.ro's case, only as the favourite indicated by exit polls, while Antena 3 and Observator News reported her as the pro-Moscow candidate who wins, and Informat.ro kept the result at the level of polls at the close of voting.281910

Labour Minister Florin Manole and former interim labour minister Dragoș Pîslaru are accusing each other over lists of deceased people reported to the European Commission as deinstitutionalised under Romania's PNRR. The dispute involves invalid and duplicate personal identification numbers flagged in Labour Ministry documents, and it raises the risk of losing PNRR money.123

Pîslaru said the list Manole is brandishing was drawn up on 30 June and signed by Alexandra Zară, the former head of the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, whom he described as nominated and backed by PSD. He also rejected Manole's accusations, saying the dead were removed by his side after PSD put them on the lists.45

Manole said responsibility for the final centralisation of the deinstitutionalisation process no longer rested with Alexandra Zară.6

The two former and current labour ministers accuse each other over the lists of deceased people reported to the European Commission as deinstitutionalised persons.37

Prosecutors Gigi Ștefan and Teodor Niță have been sent to trial on corruption charges, Adevarul.ro and HotNews.ro report. Adevarul.ro names the first as Gigi Valentin Ștefan and publishes intercepted remarks attributed to a suspect: "I'll mess up the file, I'll get a closure anyway."12

Stirile ProTV reports that prosecutor Gigi Ștefan is accused of taking 110,000 euros in bribes from a former PSD councillor. The report does not state what prosecutors say he promised in return.3

Mediafax reports testimony that a prosecutor fabricated evidence and intimidated people, and describes criminal files as fabricated. The cited accounts do not name which of the two prosecutors the testimony concerns.4