December 28, 2020 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 28.12.2020, 20:07

COVID-19 Ro. More than 2,600 new cases of COVID-19 were reported on Monday in Romania after more than 7,700 people got tested, which means an infection rate of more than 34%. Another 104 people died in the past 24 hours, and 1,197 patients are in ICUs. So far 618,400 people have been contaminated and over 15,300 have died from COVID-19. Almost 85% of those diagnosed with COVID-19 have recovered. Monday was the second day of the anti-COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Romania and 1,100 people were vaccinated, out of a total of 2,066. Only one minor allergic reaction was reported. A new tranche of vaccines will arrive in Romania on Tuesday. The first doses are for the medical staff in hospitals, who are at the forefront of the fight against the pandemic. The first stage will be completed in January. In the second stage, people from the risk groups and those who work in essential areas will be vaccinated. The vaccination of the population is due to start in April.

Pandemic. Globally, more than 81 million people have been infected with the new coronavirus, about 1.77 million have died, and more than 57 million have been cured, according to worldometers. The new coronavirus has killed one in 1,000 Americans in almost a year since the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in the United States. So far, more than 341,000 deaths have been reported, among a population of about 330 million. More than 19.5 million people have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the United States, by far the biggest figure in the world. More than one million Americans have already been vaccinated. On the European continent, devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Union has launched a mass vaccination program. The elderly and health workers are among the first to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. However, it will be many months before most Europeans are vaccinated. Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to advance in Slovenia and Croatia, both in terms of the number of infections per hundred thousand inhabitants and in terms of the number of deaths. Europe is also facing a serious disruption of air transport, as more and more countries ban flights from the UK due to concerns about the emergence of a new strain of coronavirus in that country.

Government. The new Romanian prime minister, Florin Citu, discussed on Monday with unions and employers organizations the issue of the increase, starting next year, of the guaranteed minimum salary. After the meeting, a large union announced protest actions, dissatisfied with the increase proposed by the government. Also on Monday, the Prime Minister held talks with President Klaus Iohannis and the Minister of Finance on the state budget for 2021. The new Executive in Bucharest also held its first official session, after which Florin Citu announced that the support measures for the economic environment, affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, will be included in next years budget, and HoReCa companies will be exempted for another three months from paying the specific tax. He also said that there will be a new edition of the SME Invest entrepreneurship incentive program and the period for postponing the payment of installments to banks will be extended. The new prime-minister has stated that the 2021 budget will be built on the basis of a deficit of 7% of the GDP, which shows commitment for fiscal consolidation.

Visit. The Romanian President Klaus Iohannis will be paying an official visit to the Republic of Moldova on Tuesday, at the invitation of his Moldovan counterpart, pro-Europe Maia Sandu. This is the first high level visit for Maia Sandu after she took over the presidential seat following the November 15 elections, when she defeated the former pro-Russia Socialist president Igor Dodon. According to the Romanian Presidential Administration, the Romanian Presidents visit to Chisinau will provide the framework for conveying a strong message of support for the new Moldovan president and the Moldovan citizens, in their effort for democratization, for the irreversible implementation of the rule of law principles, for consolidating Moldovas European path and its privileged relation with Romania. The two presidents will adopt a Joint Declaration aimed at consolidating the bilateral strategic partnership. Maia Sandu holds double citizenship, Moldovan and Romanian, an MA degree in public administration at Harvard, and she used to be advisor to the executive director of the World Bank, and also minister and prime minister of the Republic of Moldova. At 48 she became the first woman president of Moldova, three decades after the country proclaimed its independence from Moscow.

Eurostat. In 2019, EU households allocated, on average, 13% of their total consumption expenditure to food and non-alcoholic beverages, with Romanian households allocating 26% of total consumption spending to food and non-alcoholic beverages, according to data published by Eurostat on Monday. Other Member States where food has a high share of the total household spending are Lithuania (20.2%) and Estonia (19.3%). In contrast, the share of spending for food and non-alcoholic beverages in the total expenditure is less than 10% in three Member States: Ireland (8.6%), Luxembourg (8.9%) and Austria (9.7%). In the case of Romania, the share of spending for food and non-alcoholic beverages in the total consumption expenditure decreased from 27.3% in 2009 to 26% in 2019. Overall, in 2019 EU households spent over 956 billion (the equivalent of 6.8% of the EU GDP) on food and non-alcoholic beverages. This is the third largest category of expenditure after “housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels” and “transport”. (M. Ignatescu)