Klaus Iohannis

Romania is more affected by illegal logging than any other country in Europe | Photo: BIRN

Romania has toughened its legislation in order to protect its natural resources by defining illegal logging - but also any action "which endangers the country's water, forests and land" as a threat to national security. 

Romanian MPs on Monday backed the new law that will see bonuses handed out to mayors, deputy mayors and county council chairpersons.

The law was adopted with 86 votes in favour and one against. MPs from the second largest party, the Liberals, abstained.

MPs who supported the law said salaries in local administration are low, discouraging talented people from holding office.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday will call for a major re-write of the country's complex laws in an address to the country's parliament.

A document that BIRN has obtained quotes the President as saying: "This has to be the moment for a new beginning. Parliament must be at the heart of simplifying and rationalising legislation, which now is too complex.

Romanian officials say they will respond to France's request for military assistance following Friday's terror attacks in Paris, but the form and the size of Romania's involvement has yet to be agreed.

As Prime Minister-designate Dacian Ciolos prepares to form a new technocratic government, one of his main challenges is a tight 2016 budget, stretched by pending tax cuts and other pay awards nodded through ahead of the next election.

Ciolos faces more pressure after parliament approved a controversial law increasing public-sector wages by 10 per cent from December.

Dacian Ciolos is Romania's designated Prime Minister

President Klaus Iohannis on Tuesday nominated former European Commissioner Dacian Ciolos as the new prime minister after Victor Ponta resigned following the nightclub fire that killed at least 48 people.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis nominated Dacian Ciolos as the Prime Minister-designate entrusted with forming the country's next government.

Ciolos served as Romania's Agriculture Minister between 2007 and 2008 and after that was nominated as Agriculture Commissioner by then European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, a position he held between 2010 and 2014.

Consultations over a new Romanian prime minister are to be concluded this week, as analysts and officials predicted that a technocratic cabinet could be put in place until the next elections are held in December 2016.

Protesters booed Romanian President Klaus Iohannis as he visited the participants in the demonstrations in Bucharest on Sunday.

Iohannis went to University Square on the sixth day of protests to talk to participants in the demonstrations.

Thirteen more people died over the weekend of burns-related injuries after a blaze started by fireworks at a rock concert at the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest on October 30, bringing the number killed in the tragedy to 46.