The City Hall is unlikely to allot funding for Christmas or Easter fairs given its difficult financial situation, newly elected Bucharest mayor Nicuşor Dan said.

He explained that the funding needs to be directed to emergencies, such as the city’s centralized thermal heating system or pollution.

“If you have two kids in school and you are short of money, you don’t go on holiday to Dubai. This is what we need to do. We are in a difficult economic situation, and we need to direct the money to where the emergencies are,” Dan said, quoted by Agerpres.

He said that private fairs might take place but “allotting funding from the City Hall for such events, highly unlikely. […] We need to allot funding to essential issues.” 

Last year, the Christmas Market in the capital required acquisitions of RON 5.7 million (around EUR 1.17 million), Mediafax reported.

On the topic of the city’s centralized heating system, Dan said he would focus this winter on damage control and having the need equipment and teams ready to intervene. He said he expected hundreds of breakdowns to happen. “We cannot avoid them. But we need to intervene quickly and tell those impacted how long the repair works will take.”

He also stressed the importance of making the current centralized system more efficient, instead of setting up individual block or apartment heating systems, as they require the resizing of the gas network and also pollute. Major repair works to the city’s centralized heating system are planned for the spring of next year, using EU funding, he said on September 29.

(Photo: Bucharest Christmas Market Oficial Facebook Page)

simona@romania-insider.com