Swedish company IKEA used to run business with communist Romania in the eighties, involving confidential overbilling operations which were joined by dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's secret service, the dreaded Securitate, according to documents consulted by HotNews.ro. Files available at the National Council for the Study of Securitate Archives show that at one point in the eighties the head of Romania's espionage, General Aristotel Stamatoiu, ordered a transfer of money to an IKEA account at East Germany's Bank of Foreign Commerce. The operation codenamed Scandinavica was coordinated by a foreign Securitate officer who now heads Bucharest football club Dinamo.
If January is a month to seek the comfort of classics, so is February. And Bucharest surely delivers these days. Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour arrived for its second edition in Bucharest, and I am delighted to see it was not a singular event last year. Taking place in the Italian town of Bologna, Il […]
Divo Pulitika, fund manager at InterCapital Asset Management, noted in a recent analysis that the downgrades of Romania’s credit rating outlook from Stable to Negative by Fitch on December 24, 2024, and S&P on January 24, 2025, underscore growing concerns over the country’s fiscal and economic stability. ...
Timișoara, a major city in western Romania, is moving forward with the National Museum of the Anticommunist Revolution of December 1989, as the municipality has approved the Urban Zoning Plan (PUZ) for its development. The project is overseen by the Ministry of Culture. The museum will be built in the courtyard of the former Military […]
Romania’s National Cybersecurity Coordination Center will collaborate with European partners and other National Cybersecurity Coordination Centers within the European Union to support the implementation of the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) through an online platform integrating technical documentation, risk assessment procedures, and resources for manufacturers. The announcement was made by the Authority for the Digitalization of […]
Over 50 Christmas trees were thrown into the Tileagd reservoir, near Romania’s western city of Oradea, to serve as shelter for fish. All 53 trees, provided by the company Eco Bihor, had weights and environmentally friendly ropes attached. With the help of a boat, volunteers dropped the trees into the lakebed. The ecological initiative was […]
Romania’s industrial and logistics real estate market continued to grow in 2024, with deliveries totaling approximately 400,000 sqm, bringing the total stock to 7.4 million sqm, according to the annual report published by Colliers. Interest from both international and local investors has increased, and major transactions, such as the expansion of retailers LPP and Deichmann, […]
