February 10, 2021

The latest news from Romania and the world

Newsroom, 10.02.2021, 13:55

Budget – Romanias state budget bill for 2021 has been completed and will be made public today. According to Prime Minister Florin Cîțu, the budget is based on a deficit of about 7% of GDP. The budget bill aims at resetting the economy, at repairing the anomalies introduced in the legislation in the last 4 years, without overlooking the observance of the budgetary targets. The prime minister has also said that the budget bill is intended to maintain the confidence of the EC, of the foreign investors and of the rating agencies. In order to meet the deficit figure agreed with the EC, the government has to reduce some expenses. It needs to cut or cap employee benefits, subsidies for unprofitable state-owned companies, and to reduce funding for political parties. Child allowances will remain unchanged this year, and public pensions will increase only as of January 1, 2022

Protests — In Romania continue the protests of the trade unionists against the salary policies of the coalition government. Today, the Cartel Alfa trade unionists are picketing the Liberal Party headquarters in Bucharest, after on Tuesday they protested in front of the Finance Ministry. Sanitas trade unionists have also announced protests as of Thursday, dissatisfied with the announced reduction of employee benefits, the suspension of holiday vouchers for 2021 and the reduction of the food allowance. In turn, the Publisind trade union federation, affiliated to the National Trade Union Bloc, is organizing protests today at the Parliament Palace as well as at the Prefect’s Offices across the country. They have launched protests since December 31, 2020 and have announced they are going to continue the protest actions for an indefinite period of time. The National Federation of Pensioners in Romania is also protesting against the Governments decision not to increase pensions this year.

Motion — The opposition Social Democrats – PSD, are submitting today, at the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest, a simple motion against the health minister Vlad Voiculescu, after having met with representatives of the professional and trade union organizations in the field and of the patients associations. “Within the Health Ministry, it was not action but inaction and an obvious inability to manage this pandemic that dominated during this period”, said the PSD deputy, Alexandru Rafila, Romanias representative at the WHO. The motion on health will be debated next week.

Vaccine — More than 3 thousand new cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection were reported in Romania on Wednesday in the past 24 hours. The total number of cases exceeded 752 thousand, with the death toll exceeding 19,100. Almost 1,000 patients are in ICUs. In another development, the first 14,000 doses of Moderna vaccine arrived in Romania. These will be distributed to regional and vaccination centers across the country. Since the beginning of the vaccination campaign in Romania, on December 27, about 140 thousand people have been vaccinated with the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine. The two vaccine types available in the European Union, Moderna and BioNTech-Pfizer, are very similar in effectiveness and use messenger RNA-based technology. The coordinator of the anti-COVID vaccination campaign, Dr. Valeriu Gheorghiţă, stated that in the second vaccination stage, which started on January 15, 40-45,000 doses might be administered daily throughout the country.

colectiv — The documentary film collective, directed by Alexander Nanau, has been shortlisted in the Documentary Feature and International Feature Film categories of the Academy Awards. The film, co-produced by Romania and Luxembourg, is a story that presents the joint efforts of doctors, government officials and investigative journalists, who fight corruption while discovering large-scale fraud in the health system in Bucharest after the fire in the Colectiv club. The fire took place on October 30, 2015 and made 65 victims. The Oscar nominations will be announced on March 15, and the winners will be announced at the Academy Awards Gala on April 25. (tr. L.Simion)