December 21, 2020 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 21.12.2020, 19:48

Vaccine. The
European Medicines Agency on Monday approved the Covid vaccine developed by
Pfizer and BioNTech. The vaccine is already being rolled out in the UK, the
Unites States, Canada and Israel. Agency representatives said there is no proof
that the vaccine is not efficient against the new strain of the virus. A first
small batch of 10,000 doses is expected to arrive in Romania on 26th
December, with the vaccination campaign kicking off officially the next day.
The authorities are saying that these first doses will be enough to vaccinate
the medical staff in Romania’s ten infectious disease hospitals on the front
line of the fight against the pandemic. Some 2,500 new Covid cases and 87 new
deaths were recorded on Monday in Romania. Total infections near 600,000 and
the death toll 14,500. The number of Covid patients in intensive care is still
high, at 1,255.

Parliament.
The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate resulting from the latest parliamentary
elections in Romania on Monday met for the first time after the parliamentary
parties negotiated the distribution of leadership positions and the membership
of specialist committees. 459 were validated of the 460 MPs representing the
Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party, the USR-PLUS Alliance,
the Alliance for the
Union of Romanians and the Democratic Party of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania.
Also on Monday, the centre-right coalition formed by the Liberals, the USR-PLUS
Alliance and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians agreed on a governing
programme for 2020-2024. They spoke about stability, responsibility and
competence in the future government, with the aim of modernising Romania. The three parties decided to support the current
Liberal finance minister Florin Citu for prime minister. In the future
government, the National Liberal Party is expected to control nine ministries, the
USR-PLUS Alliance six and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians three. As
regards the leadership of the two chambers of Parliament, the Save Romania
Union and PLUS Alliance will designate the new Senate Speaker while the
Liberals will be appointing the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. Marcel
Ciolacu, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, which won the largest
number of seats, told his fellow MPs they need to prepare for a strong
opposition.

Anniversary.
31 years ago, the communist uprising started in Timisoara, western Romania, and
then spread to Bucharest and other big cities, sparking a nation-wide movement
that led to the demise of the communist regime led by dictator Nicolae
Ceausescu. A day before, Timisoara had become the first city free of communism.
On December 21, Ceausescu called a large rally, meant to condemn the events in
Timisoara and muster popular support for the party and the state leadership,
but the reaction of the people was not what he had expected. Targu Mures. in
the centre, became the third city in Romania to rise against the communist
regime. Dozens of people were killed on this day all over the country, hundreds
injured and over one thousand arrested.

Organised crime. The justice ministry in Romania
has finalised and submitted for public consultation the draft of the national
strategy against organised crime for 2021-2024, which justice minister Catalin
Predoiu says will guide efficiently the response of the state in this regard.
The strategy is pursuing five different lines of action: increasing
institutional capacity to prevent organised crime and boosting resilience to
this phenomenon; developing institutional capacity to fight organised crime;
consolidating intervention against the manifestation of organised crime;
limiting the access of organised crime groups to financial resources; and
consolidating national and international cooperation. The document also benefitted
from the input of FBI specialists, with the help of the US Embassy in Bucharest
and the US Department of Justice. (CM)