This week, the MPs voted the law for increasing the pensions with 40%, not only with 10% as the Government intended. If promulgated, the law will also increase the budgetary deficit and, according to Klaus Iohannis, will cut 3 billion EUR from the European funds allotted to Romania.

So far the news is not good for the Romanian economy, as the Romanian currency is constantly losing value against all the other currencies, but especially against the European one, Euro. So far, Euro is valued 4.86 RON (Romanian New Currency), but bankers expect a drop towards 4.9 by the end of the year.

Will Romania approach IMF for help by next year? The Government denies all the rumors, but the economy is not in a good state, despite the optimism displayed by the minister of Finance. Moreover, the pension hike could lower the country’s rating and then the loans would become too expensive for an economy already hit by the corona-crisis.

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The battle for the implementation of the 5G network infrastructure in Romania is not a new one. It is well known that the current Romanian Government has turned its back towards the Chinese company Huawei after coming to power in October 2019. The change came right after president Trump forbid its allies in Europe and across the world to deal with Huawei for the 5G deals.

Romanian president signed a memorandum with president Trump in 2019 and he said a definitive NO to the Chinese 5 G technology in Romania in August 2020, when he stated:

Romania’s position is exactly the same position expressed in the memorandum signed last year when I paid the official visit to president Trump. We want secure networks which are not controlled by other states with other goals than the ones they officially declared, and we also want networks which fulfill the needs of both the Romanian citizens and of our companies.

Klaus Iohannis on Chinese 5G technology in August 2020

Now, the American ambassador to Romania, the Romanian born American Adrian Zuckerman, stressed out more on the same topic:

Huawei and the Communist Chinese want to make Romania the surveillance state of 30 years ago- just like it is in Communist China. Send Beijing a message—the Communist surveillance state no longer exists in Romania. President Trump and the American people had the courage to say no. I know the brave and courageous people of Romania will also say no. The people of Romania want democracy, privacy, decency and the rule of law. The people of Romania want to do this the RIGHT way. Huawei is the WRONGWAY for Romania.

H.E. Adrian Zuckerman on Huawei presence in Romania

Also, the ambassador accused the Romanian mass-media for being paid by the Chinese government. The “guilt” of the mass-media news portals is the publishing the clarifications of the Chinese Embassy in Bucharest on 5G technology.

Huawei and the Chinese Embassy continue to try to mislead the people of Romania. The purported clarifications of Huawei’s position distributed by the Chinese embassy, various authors with checkered pasts and Russian disinformation outlets are demonstrably false and unavailing. The Communist Chinese disdain freedom, the rule of law, human rights, and the truth. Huawei and its Communist Chinese bosses in Beijing are masters at intimidation, influence peddling and trying to prevent honest Romanians from reading the truth.

H.E. Adrian Zuckerman on Romanian mass-media

Romania posponed twice the tender for 5G, the last time because of the pandemic lockdown. The future will tell who wins this 5G war of attrition in Romania: will they be the Americans, who want “safe” companies such as Ericsson or Samsung, or will they be the Chinese, who want to implement Huawei 5G in Romania after winning the tender.

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The UK has already left the EU bloc, so the contributors to the EU funds are less. Meanwhile, there are discussions regarding the level of the contributions to the EU budget. There are some countries who want to limit the contributions to the EU budget to only 1%, of the national GDP especially after UK left.

Among them some of the net contributors to the EU budget, including Germany and Austria.

How much money does Romania contribute with to the EU budget each year?

According to the official portal of the European Parliament, Romania contributed with €1.23 billion to the EU budget in 2017, and collected €202 million in customs duties on the EU’s behalf, of which it retained 20% as an administrative fee.

As a comparison of the countries who pays most to the European budget, in 2017 Germany, with a net contribution of €12.8bn, was the largest contributor, followed by the UK, with €7.43bn (£6.55bn). Now, as the UK has already left, the EU budget will be significantly lower.

At the moment, there are nine countries who offer more than they get from the EU budget, and they are the net contributors of the European Union:

• Germany
• France
• Italy
• The Netherlands
• Austria
• Finland
• Sweden
• Denmark
• Ireland

How much money does Romania receive from the EU budget?

Romania gets back more than it contribute. The official data for 2017 shows the following:

In other words, Romania is very much dependent of the European Union budget in order to develop its economy. Agriculture, a domain where Romania is renowned as being the grain yard of all Europe and one of the biggest agricultural products exporters in the EU, shows this dependency. While spending 3,332.10 M€ out of its own budget for Agriculture, Romania gets another 56,486.0 M€ from the EU.

This is why president Klaus Iohannis is decided to protect Romania’s interests during the meetings he has with the European officials and during the negotiations he attends in Brussels these days.

A 1% limit for the contributions of the member states will clearly disadvantage the majority of them, including Romania.

Photo source: presidency.ro

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