BUCHAREST, July 31 (Reuters) – Romanian healthcare workers ended a nationwide strike on Friday as the country’s caretaker government approved new hires in short-staffed state hospitals.
About two-third of doctors, nurses and other health workers at 400 hospitals across the country went on strike for the first time in a decade on Tuesday, protesting over job freezes and a bill on public sector wages that seeks to unify the pay system across state institutions and eliminate dozens of bonuses from 2027.
The bill is a key reform that Romania must approve by end-August or risk losing nearly €800 million ($920 million) in EU funds.
Romanian lawmakers approved earlier this week a series of other reforms that will unlock billions of euros in EU grants, but had yet to agree on the public sector wage bill.
Parties are deadlocked over a new government after a broad pro-European coalition government collapsed three months ago.
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(Reporting by Luiza Ilie, editing by Alex Richardson)
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