Last year, 16.1% of households were unable to pay on time some of their important current expenses (house maintenance, loan installments, utilities, etc.), according to an analysis of the living conditions of the Romanian population in 2023, conducted by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).The most frequent cases of overdue bill payments in 2023 were those for home maintenance (79.8%) and electricity (75%)."Paying bank installments is a priority for every household. However, 7.0% of households mentioned that, due to their precarious financial situation, they were overdue on various loans (other than loans for house purchase). The lower share of these outstanding debts is mainly explained by the specific nature of these types of payments, which penalize more severely the failure to meet payment deadlines, and by the low frequency of households having to repay loans," emphasizes the INS.In 2023, the share of households with outstanding debts fell by 2.4 percentage points compared to the previous year, and by residence by 2.1 percentage points in urban areas and by 2.9 percentage points in rural areas. In rural areas, 18.2% of households specified that, in 2023, there was at least one situation in which they were unable to pay on timeWhile members of urban households had past-due bills for household maintenance (85.9% of households), in rural areas the highest share of past-due bills was for electricity (84.3% of households).As in 2022, the phenomenon of past-due bills in 2023 was more prevalent among households with dependent children (17.8%), single parent households with at least one minor dependent child (21.2%) and households with two adults with 3 or more minor dependent children (32.9%).The statistical data were obtained through the "Quality of Life Survey", conducted in May 2023, informs the INS.
Participation in cultural education activities continues to be limited, with the main barriers being difficult access, insufficient knowledge, and cost, the recently released Cultural Consumption Barometer 2024 shows. The report showed that many Romanians still associate culture with entertainment rather than with personal development or furthering their knowledge. The need for relaxation dominates in cultural […]
Roughly 84% of Romanians say that the pace of the state’s digitalization is slow or very slow, according to an Edge Institute & AtlasIntel study presented at the Digital Governance Summit 2025, which took place on Tuesday, November 25, at the presidential palace in Bucharest. The survey aims to capture the way citizens relate to […]
Romania’s Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) issued a negative opinion on the new bill regarding magistrates’ pensions. The move is only the latest development concerning a heated issue that led to tensions between the executive and the judiciary branch. CSM’s opinion is consultative, and the government led by Ilie Bolojan can still take responsibility for […]
Romania took the presidency of the Central European Initiative (or CEI) on Wednesday, November 26, according to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE). The organization is a regional intergovernmental forum established in 1989, following the fall of the Berlin Wall. It gathers 17 Member States in Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe […]
Trade between Romania and Poland continues to grow, with annual bilateral exchanges in goods now valued at more than EUR 12 billion, according to figures presented by the Polish-Romanian Bilateral Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PRBCC). The data was released during a reception in Bucharest marking Poland’s Independence Day and Romania’s National Day. Polish investments […]
As Romania moves closer to implementing the EU Pay Transparency Directive, local employers are preparing for one of the most consequential shifts in workplace regulation in over a decade. The directive, set for transposition by June 2026, introduces strict new rules on salary disclosure, pay reporting, and equal-pay verification, aiming to close persistent gender gaps […]
