The black market of cigarettes reached 10.4% of the total of consumption, in May this year, up by 9.8% in March, shows a study made by the research company Novel.According to data released by JTI on Monday, this is the highest level of smuggling since January 2020. The survey reveals that cigarette smuggling in May 2024 saw the highest increase in the Northeast, up 5.2 percentage points to 26.5%, followed by the Southeast (+2.6 percentage points to 7.4%), In terms of the origin of black market products, Duty Free continues to account for the largest share (36.3%), followed by the Republic of Moldova (up 7.4 p.p. to 23.3%) and Bulgaria (22.1%, up 1.6 p.p.). At the same time, the information centralized on the stopcontrabanda.ro platform, from the beginning of the year to date, shows that the authorities have seized some 34 million smuggled cigarettes, 75% of which in the south of the country. Compared to other European countries, there is a clear correlation between accessibility and the black market, with the highest rates in Ireland at 24.4% and France at 32.4%, according to the published statistics. In terms of penalties, in the first five months of the year, the Romanian Border Police seized about 1.3 million packs of cigarettes worth over 30 million lei. "During the period under review, border guards seized 6,300 kg of loose tobacco and 52 kg of hookah tobacco," said the inspector general of the Border Police, Police Superintendent Cornel-Laurian Stoica. Tobacco companies, big taxpayers, pay more than 20 billion lei annually to the state budget in excise duties, VAT and other taxes and contributions.
Around 32% of Romanians plan to spend their upcoming holidays abroad, with Greece, Italy, and Spain topping the list of preferred destinations, according to the Visa CEE Travel and Payment Intentions Study 2025. Of those going abroad for the summer, nearly 40% say they are “experience seekers,” prioritizing discoveries and stepping out of their comfort […]
Călin Georgescu, the far-right, Russia-friendly politician who surprisingly emerged as the first-round winner of last year’s presidential elections, will remain under judicial supervision after the District 1 Court in Bucharest rejected his appeal against the prosecutors’ decision to extend the preventive measure,
The mayor of Timișoara, Dominic Fritz, will be the new leader of the Save Romania Union party, or USR, after he received 67.2% of the votes in an internal race. The vote for the new party president was conducted online and started Wednesday at 10 AM and ended Friday at noon. A total of 10,914 […]
The Sports Barometer in Romania, a study conducted by IRES and presented on Thursday, June 12, during the Sports Festival, reveals that 32% of Romanians do not engage in any type of physical activity, and that as age increases motivation drastically decreases. According to the study, 28% of Romanians are super-active and do a form […]
The Romanian-American University has officially launched the country’s first Department of Latin American Studies (DSLA), marking a significant step in its internationalization efforts. The inauguration brought together official representatives from eight Latin American countries - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay - underlining the strong diplomatic support for deepening educational and cultural […]
Romanian president Nicușor Dan laid wreaths on Friday, June 13, at the Monument dedicated to the memory of the victims of the June 13–15, 1990 Mineriad and at the “Kilometer Zero of Democracy” Monument. The violent events of June 1990 remain in post-communist memory as the “June 13–15, 1990 Mineriad” and refer to the repression, […]
