August 3, 2021 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 03.08.2021, 19:45

Budget. In Bucharest, the Liberal PM
Florin Cîţu announced a first draft of the state budget adjustment
bill is ready and will be forwarded soon to the leaders of the right-of-centre
ruling coalition. The prime minister also said he was still waiting for all
ministers to report on the budget execution for the first half of the year, and
called for more responsibility in public spending in the next 6 months. In an
internet post, Cîţu reminded his cabinet members that they must reach all the
budget targets undertaken at the beginning of this year.

Attack. The
European Union and NATO firmly condemned last Thursday’s drone attack off the
coast of Oman on an oil tanker managed by an Israeli billionaire in which two
crew members were killed, one Romanian and one British national. NATO warned
that freedom of navigation is essential for allies and must be respected in
keeping with international law. According to the Alliance, the UK, the US and
Romania reached the conclusion that Iran is most likely responsible for the
attack, and the allies are worried about Tehran’s destabilising actions in the
region. Iran rejected the accusations and said it will not hesitate to defend
its security and national interests. Israel described the incident as a clear
violation of international law. In Bucharest, the foreign ministry also
condemned the attack and summoned the Iranian ambassador in Bucharest. A similar
measure was taken in London, where prime minister Boris Johnson said Iran must
face up to the consequences. The government in Tehran summoned the chargé d’affaires of the British and Romanian embassies to protest against the
accusations against Iran.

COVID-19. Tuesday saw 233 new Covid cases in Romania, the highest number in the last two months. Over 400 Covid patients are receiving hospital treatment, including 60 in intensive care. Five COVID-related deaths were also reported on Tuesday. The number of new coronavirus cases is growing across Europe, while in Romania containment measures are more relaxed than in other countries, state secretary Raed Arafat said. Despite this, he said, Romanians are still failing to observe the restrictions and many have given up wearing face masks on public transport. In spite of repeated warnings of an imminent new wave of infections, the vaccine rollout is also lagging behind in Romania, where 5 million people have received at least one dose, a target set for early June but which was only met a few days ago.

Vaccination. The European Union has reached a major goal of providing at least one dose of the Covid vaccine to 70% of the adults in the Union, but member states must step up vaccination rates in order to contain the faster-spreading variants, the European Commission chief warned on Tuesday. Ursula von der Leyen said that, apart from the first dose target being met, 57% of EU adults are now fully vaccinated against Covid. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 68% of the adults in the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland have received their first dose, whereas 53.7% of the approximately 400 million adults in the 31 countries are fully vaccinated.

Wildfires. Efforts are being ramped up to put out the wildfires
raging in several Balkan countries. The fire is still blazing in many areas,
owing to strong winds and high temperatures. Greece is faced with its highest
temperatures in the last 30 years, with highs of 40 to 45 degrees Celsius. The
Greek authorities took a series of measures to extinguish the wildfires and in
Turkey, the fire fighting services, which have been struggling to contain the
fire for almost a week, said there are still active fires. They received help from
fire fighters from Spain, Croatia and Russia. The heat wave has also affected
southern Bulgaria and Serbia, where hundreds of hectares of forest have caught
fire. The authorities are on alert, given that high temperatures are also
expected in the next few days.

Recovery. The European Commission has made the
first payments under the European Recovery and Resilience Plan to Belgium,
Luxembourg and Portugal, worth in total almost 3 billion euros. These are the
first countries to receive 13% of the promised funds as part of a massive EU recovery
scheme worth 800 billion euros and aimed at overcoming the consequences of the
Covid-19 pandemic. The European Commission will this month make further
payments to other countries as soon as the latter finalise their national
plans. All states, with the exception of The Netherlands and Bulgaria have
submitted their plans. The Commission has so far given the green light to 16
countries, namely Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy,
Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Croatia, Cyprus, Lithuania and
Slovenia. The plans submitted by 7 states, including Romania, are still under
assessment.

Unemployment. The unemployment rate at the end
of June in Romania was 3% lower than in the previous month and equal to that in
June last year, according to the national employment agency. Some 260,000
Romanians were out of job at the end of June, a third of them from urban areas
and the rest from the countryside.

Olympics. Bronze
medallists at the Canoe Sprint European Championship in Poznan this year, the
Romanian rowers Cătălin Chirilă and Victor Mihalachi on Tuesday finished in
fifth place in the final of the men’s canoe double 1,000 m at the Tokyo
Olympics. Victor Mihalachi has two world championship titles in this event,
which he won in 2010 and 2014. Also at the Tokyo Games, Romanian gymnast Larisa Iordache missed the beam final because
of an ankle injury. Romania so far won four medals in Tokyo, including one gold
and three silver. (CM)