December 20, 2020

A roundup of news from Romania and the world

Newsroom, 20.12.2020, 14:03

Meeting — The two chambers of the new Parliament of Romania elected on December 6 were summoned by President Klaus Iohannis to meet on Monday in separate sessions in the opening of the 2020-2024 legislature. The new MPs will have their mandates validated and then will be sworn in. The two chambers are declared legally set up after the validation of two thirds of the MP mandates and after their being sworn in. 466 MPs were elected following the December 6 legislative elections, 330 deputies and 136 senators. In parallel, the representatives of the future majority center-right coalition in Parliament continue negotiations regarding the common governing program. PNL, USR-PLUS and UDMR have announced the program will be finalized on Sunday or Monday at the latest. On Saturday the 3 parties reached an agreement over the distribution of the key positions in the state. The presidency of the Chamber of Deputies will be held by a Liberal and that of the Senate by a representative of the USR-PLUS alliance. The proposal for the PM post will be the current Liberal finance minister Florin Citu. In the future cabinet, PNL will hold 9 portfolios, USR-PLUS 6 and UDMR 3. There will also be 2 deputy prime ministers from USR-PLUS and UDMR. On the other hand, PSD, ranked first after the legislative elections, insists that the correct solution, in the context of the pandemic, would be a national union government, headed by Professor Alexandru Rafila, Romania’s representative at the WHO. The Social Democrat leader Marcel Ciolacu said that his party would never vote for a government made up of PNL- USR-PLUS and UDMR, which keeps Romania in a crisis, according to him.

Covid-19 Ro — 3,350 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the past 24 hours in Romania, after a little over 12,200 tests were performed. The total number of cases exceeded 591,000, according to data provided on Sunday by the Strategic Communication Group. At the same time, another 98 Romanians have died due to Covid-19, the total death toll reaching almost 14,400. 1,267 patients are in ICUs. In another development, preparations are being made in Romania before the arrival of the first COVID 19 vaccines. The Cantacuzino National Institute for Medical-Military Research and Development in Bucharest is expected to be approved as a national vaccine storage center. The Institute has already completed all stages of arranging the storage spaces, including the installation of the storage freezers providing a temperature of -80 degrees Celsius. The unit will have a storage capacity of approximately 1.5 million doses, while around 200,000 doses will be stored in each of the six regional centers. During this period, the training of the personnel who will perform the vaccination will also take place. The first 10,000 doses of anti-COVID-19 vaccine are expected in Romania on December 26. They are intended for the medical staff from 10 infectious diseases hospitals across Romania.

1989 revolution — Manifestations for the commemoration of the heroes who lost their lives in the anti-communist December 1989 Revolution continue, in the context of the pandemic. Today, the sound of sirens was heard in Timişoara for three minutes, to mark Victory Day, the day when Timisoara was declared the first city of Romania free of communism. The uprising against the communist regime broke out in Timisoara, 31 years ago, on December 16. On December 17, dictator Nicolae Ceausescu ordered the use of lethal weapons against people who protested against the communist regime in the street. On December 19, in order to do away with any trace of the massacre, the communist authorities applied the so-called “Rose” operation, under which corpses were stolen from the morgue in Timisoara and transported to Bucharest to be cremated. The protests extended, on the 21st to the capital Bucharest and to other big cities of Romania to culminate, the next day, with the fleeing of the dictator, in a helicopter, from the headquarters of the central committee of the communist party, that was being besieged by hundreds of thousands of protesters. We recall that the protests in Timisoara, where almost 100 people died and about 350 were wounded, represented the spark that led, a few days later, to the fall of the dictator, following the bloodiest Revolution in southeastern Europe.

Gymnastics – Romania’s representatives in the European Women’s’ Artistic Gymnastics Championships hosted by Mersin, Turkey have qualified to all apparatus finals. In today’s finals Larisa Iordache will perform in the vault, uneven bars, beam and floor events. Ioana Stănciulescu qualified for the vault final. Silviana Sfiringu will perform in the beam final, and Irina Antonia Duţă in the floor final. On Saturday, the Romanian team won the silver medals after having dominated Thursday’s qualifiers. Romania was outclassed by Ukraine, which won gold. Hungary came in third. (tr. L. Simion)