Romania submitted on Friday a request to the European Commission to amend its National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and to add a new chapter on REPowerEU, which aims to strengthen the Union's strategic autonomy by diversifying energy supply and increasing the EU's independence and security of energy supply.According to a press release from the EU executive, the chapter on REPowerEU proposed by Romania covers two new reforms and six new investments, as well as a reinforced measure already in the plan. The reforms and investments in this chapter are related to increasing green energy production, improving the energy efficiency of buildings and strengthening the skills of the green energy workforce.The amendment to the plan proposed by Romania foresees the removal of four investments from the initial plan and the modification of about 70 measures.Romania's request to amend its plan is based on the need to take account of high inflation in 2022, supply chain disruptions and the downward revision of its maximum grant allocation under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (RRM) from EUR 14.2 billion to EUR 12.1 billion. This revision is part of the June 2022 update of the RRM grant allocation key and reflects Romania's comparatively better economic performance in 2020 and 2021 compared to the initial forecast.Romania has requested the transfer of its share of the Brexit adjustment reserve, amounting to EUR 43.2 million, to the NRRP. Together with the grants provided to Romania through the RRM and REPowerEU (EUR 12.1 billion and EUR 1.4 billion respectively) and the RRM loans already committed under the original plan (EUR 14.9 billion), these funds bring the value of the amended plan presented to almost EUR 28.5 billion.The Commission will now assess whether the amended plan continues to meet all the assessment criteria set out in the RRM Regulation.If the Commission's assessment is positive, the EC will present a proposal to amend the Council Implementing Decision to take account of the changes to the Romanian plan.Member states will then have four weeks to approve the Commission's assessment.
Romania’s statistics office confirmed the 1.6% GDP growth (+1.2% y/y under the chain-linked volume or CLV methodology used by Eurostat) for the third quarter of the year (Q3), half of which was the result of outstanding activity reported in construction. The positive base effects in agriculture (weak crops last year) and marginal improvement in industry […]
Ciprian Ciucu, the Liberal (PNL) mayor of District 6, secured more than 36% of the votes in the December 7, 2025, partial local elections, earning him the position of Bucharest’s new general mayor. The victory marks a significant step in his political career that began 25 years ago and has steadily moved from local administration...
Update: After the counting of the almost 590,000 votes cast in Bucharest, Liberal (PNL) candidate Ciprian Ciucu won the elections for general mayor with 36.1% (over 211,000 votes), holding a lead of more than 14 percentage points over the runner-up. Anca Alexandrescu (21.94%), the candidate...
The exit polls published on Sunday, December 7, at 9 PM, give Ciprian Ciucu as the winner of the elections for Bucharest's new general mayor. The candidate backed by the center-right National Liberal Party won 32.7% of the votes, over 6% ahead of Daniel Băluță, who was backed by PNL’s coalition partner, the Social Democratic […]
Close to 1.8 million Bucharest residents are expected to cast their ballot on Sunday, December 7, to elect the city's next mayor. The post has been vacant since Nicușor Dan was elected president this May. He had secured a second mandate as mayor of Bucharest in June 2024, having won over 48% of the votes. […]
I am a bit late to the party, but I have thoughts (and concerns) on Radu Jude’s much talked-about Dracula, and even more thoughts (and compliments) on other films that I fear might have gone under the radar a bit. Let’s go! There is no more recognizable marketing asset for the local tourism (and no […]
