December 30, 2021 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 30.12.2021, 19:47

Covid-19 – Romania could enter the 5th wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in January, with the dominant Omicron variant. As this strain is much more contagious than the Delta variant, Romania needs to increase the testing capacity, including in the family physicians’ offices, as well as to improve the response capacity of hospitals – said the health minister, Alexandru Rafila. He has given assurances that innovative medicines used to treat Covid will soon arrive in Romania. Minister Rafila has also called for the re-boosting of the vaccination campaign, which has slowed down at present. In turn, the head of the National Center for the Monitoring and Control of Communicable Diseases, Adriana Pistol, said that the worst scenario indicates, in the 5th wave of the pandemic, 25,000 cases per day and over 1,500 people in ICUs. 1,497 new cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections have been reported in the last 24 hours alongside 37 deaths, one being from the previous day – the Strategic Communication Group reported on Thursday. Since the onset of the pandemic, over 1.8 million COVID-19 cases have been registered in Romania, and almost 60,000 people diagnosed with the novel coronavirus have died. The country has the second lowest vaccination rate among the 27 EU members, after Bulgaria. Less than 7.9 million Romanians have been fully vaccinated, that is a little over 40% of the eligible population. About two million of them have had the booster dose.

Recovery and Resilience — The Romanian government has completed all the milestones that Romania still had to reach by December 2021 in the application of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the Minister of Investments and European Projects, Dan Vîlceanu announced. He said that the government adopted, in this respect, in Thursdays meeting, among others, the Emergency Ordinance regarding the Law on water supply and sewerage and the Railway Infrastructure Development Strategy 2021-2025. Vîlceanu also said that the talks related to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan renegotiations have been completed and that there are still three milestones to be fulfilled, but which do not depend on the Government, but on the agreement between the EBRD and the European Investment Fund. Also on Thursday the government adopted the National Dropout Reduction Program that will benefit from 543 million Euros worth of funds. We remind you that through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, approved in autumn, in Brussels, Romania is to receive from the European Union, until 2026, about 29 billion Euros in the form of subsidies and loans for investments and reforms. The European Commission has already transferred 1.8 billion Euros to Romania in the form of pre-financing, the equivalent of 13% of the total number of grants allocated.

Home ownership — Over 96% of Romanias population lived in a privately-owned home in 2020, the highest percentage among EU member states – according to data released on Thursday by Eurostat. While across the EU, the home-ownership rate is slightly decreasing compared to 2019, in Romania the trend is reversed, the home-ownership rate increasing from 95.8 to 96.1%. Other countries with a high home-ownership rate are Slovakia (92%), Hungary and Croatia (both with 91%). At the other end, the countries with a low home-ownership rate are Denmark – 59%, Austria – 55% and Germany – just over 50%. Eurostat data also show that, at EU level, 53% of the population lives in a house, 46% in an apartment, and 1% in floating homes or trailers. Almost 66% of Romanians live in a house and 34% in an apartment. But Romania ranks last in the EU in terms of house size, measured by the average number of rooms per person. While in the EU the average is 1.6 rooms for one person, in Romania it is 1.1 rooms for one person.

Ghiseul.ro – The Romanian Digitalization Authority announces that the online platform Ghişeul.ro has collected over 1 billion lei (about 200 million Euros) this year. Payments made by users in just 12 months exceed, both in terms of the number of transactions and of the amounts collected, the total figures recorded in the previous 9 years of the platform operation. “It is obvious that Romanians have changed their behavior in relation to the state. We are already working on the Ghişeul.ro mobile application and on version 2.0 of the www.ghiseul.ro web platform”, said the president of the Romanian Digitalization Authority, Octavian Oprea. Launched in 2011, Ghişeul.ro is the official online payment platform of the Romanian state. It is used by citizens and companies to pay for over 350 public services provided by 1,000 institutions and authorities, as well as fines.

Extradition – The Romanian Justice Ministry has again called for the extradition of the former PSD deputy Cristian Rizea who fled to Chisinau, after having been sentenced in Romania to 4 years and 8 months in prison, for influence peddling, money laundering and influencing declarations. Rizea, who is also accused of illegally obtaining the Moldovan citizenship in 2017, which was withdrawn three years later by former President Igor Dodon, lost the dispute at the Chisinau Court of Appeal and, according to lawyers, he can be extradited easier. Rizea was accused of claiming directly from a businessman the amount of 300 thousand Euros, disguised in the form of two fictitious loan agreements, in exchange for the promise, which was later fulfilled, that he would intervene to solve the problems the respective businessman had with the National Company for the State Protocol Heritage Administration (RAAPPS) and the Chiajna mayor’s office, in Ilfov County (south). The Romanian side sent the extradition request to the Moldovan Justice Ministry on November 5, 2020. The next deadline set by the Moldovan authorities in Rizeas extradition file is January 28, 2022. (LS)