E-TRENDS by NewsVibe. Top trending economic topics over the past week

Ten topics associated with business and government, in the broader landscape of content published digitally about the economy, have seen an accelerated visibility over the last week. With the help of NewsVibe, an AI media monitoring platform, we analyzed 17,399 articles and posts with economic content in the Romanian online space, identifying a number of entities with increasing exposure. The reasons behind their increased visibility are detailed in the summary below.

Top 10 trending entities in economic context

StartPost

Ion Iliescu

Asociația Municipiilor din România

COTAR (Confederation of Operators and Authorized Carriers in Romania)

Cristian Popa

Ceyhan

Petrobrazi

High Court of Cassation and Justice

Marius Budăi

TEZAUR program

The rumors about StartPost exploded after the launch in early August of the new service of the Romanian Post Office, through which entrepreneurs can quickly register their company and registered office directly at the post office counter, for a fee of 100 lei/month + VAT.

The death of former president Ion Iliescu, the event that has dominated public debate in Romania lately, has also reverberated in the economic news. Thus, several publications have reported on his wealth and succession, with a focus on speculation about the destination of the post-decembrist leader's real estate holdings. In the same context, Governor Mugur Isărescu publicly recalled in his message of condolences that in the 1990s, Ion Iliescu supported the transformation of the NBR into an independent institution and the creation of a market economy banking system. The economic system formed in the first years after the revolution was also at the forefront of the retrospectives reviewing Ilyich's political legacy.

The Association of Municipalities in Romania was mentioned repeatedly after the meeting with representatives of the Executive that focused, among other things, on the topic of the new local tax grid, which could increase the tax burden by up to 70% from 2026, according to Buzău Mayor Constantin Toma. Another topic under discussion was the reduction of the number of employees in the town halls.

COTAR (Confederation of Operators and Authorized Transporters of Romania) was present in the public debate with the announcement that after the expiry of the cap on RCA tariffs in July 2025, insurance policies for heavy vehicles have become almost one fifth more expensive. The confederation demanded, among other things, the reorganization of the ASF, otherwise threatening protests.

Cristian Popa, a member of the NBR's board of directors and chairman of the numismatics commission, recently said the bank is technically ready to print the euro, even if Romania does not yet meet the convergence criteria.

OMV Petrom announced on 5 August that it had detected a batch of Azerbaijani crude oil contaminated with organic chlorides, which was destined for the Petrobrazi refinery in the port of Ceyhan (Turkey). In order to prevent the Petrobrazi refinery from being shut down and avoid disruption of the fuel market, the government authorized the emergency release of strategic stocks.

The High Court of Cassation and Justice has recently published its final decision obliging ANAF to reimburse OMV Petrom over 435 million lei (VAT, interest and penalties) paid in 2013, after the tax authorities had challenged the VAT deduction related to the purchase in 2007-2008 of oil services and Petromservice assets; the final decision rejects ANAF's appeal and puts an end to a tax dispute that has been going on for over ten years.

The former Minister of Labor, currently PSD deputy, Marius Budăi, has been in the limelight with several public statements, including a plea for progressive taxation, but also a criticism of the application of the CASS contribution on child-raising allowance.

TEZAUR program. The Ministry of Finance launched on August 4 a new issue of 1-, 3- and 5-year government securities with net interest rates of up to 7.85% per annum; the proceeds are tax-free.

Top 15 online sources on economics in the past week

Grafic NewsVibe. Top relevant web and social media sources that published the most articles and posts on economic topics in the last week

*****Synthesis made using a data feed provided by the media monitoring platformNewsVibe Romania. The analysis is based on a Machine Learning model developed by the NewsVibe team, which has been trained to classify the content extracted from relevant online sources according to the topic. The presented data was enhanced with the help of AI tools.