February 13, 2021
A roundup of domestic and international news.
Newsroom, 13.02.2021, 13:55
BUDGET BILL – The draft state budget for the current year has been put up for public debate on the Finance Ministry’s website and is to be passed by the Bucharest Government next week. The budget is based on a deficit of around 7.16% of the GDP and an economic growth rate of 4.3%. Under the draft budget child allowances remain unchanged, pensions increase only from January 1, 2022, there will be no more holiday vouchers this year, and students will only benefit from a 50% discount on rail transport. Also, investment is estimated at 5.5% of the GDP, which is more than last year. The economy, research, transport and energy are the sectors that will receive more money this year, while the budgets for development, finance, justice and healthcare will be smaller.
VACCINATION – Romania has reintroduced quarantine measures for people arriving from countries in the yellow zone, that is countries where the infection rate is higher than the one in Romania. People unable to present a negative Covid-19 test upon entering the country will be quarantined for 14 days. If they have such a test, issued by maximum 72 hours prior to the arrival, they will be quarantined for 10 days. Exempted from the two-week quarantine are a number of categories of employees, children up to 3 years of age, people who have recovered from COVID-19 in the last three months or have already received both doses of COVID-19 vaccine at least 10 days prior to entering Romania. The total number of infections exceeded 757,000 in Romania with a death toll of over 19,270. About 1,000 people are in ICUs. The anti-Covid vaccination campaign continues in the country. More than one million vaccine doses have been administered so far. Most people have been vaccinated with Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines. Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines are also being administered to the population.
MAE — The Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu hailed the adoption on Friday of the Declaration of the member states of the Governing Council of the Community of Democracies on the situation in Myanmar. Romania holds the presidency of the Community of Democracies for the period September 2019 – September 2021. According to a MAE communiqué, the declaration, supported by Romania and other states including the US, Canada, Great Britain, Finland, Norway, expresses deep concern about the situation in Myanmar where, as of February 1, the democratically elected government has been toppled by the military forces. The document calls for military leaders to observe democratic norms and the rule of law, asking for the establishment of a legitimately elected Parliament, as well as for the release of unjustly detained persons and the observance of the freedom of expression.
VISIT — The Romanian PM, Florin Cîţu, on Friday met with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The two officials addressed issues such as managing the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic recovery and combating climate change and the digital transition. The Romanian PM presented the stage of the vaccination campaign at national level, which puts Romania on one of the first places among the EU member states. In his turn, the President of the European Commission thanked Romania for its decision to donate up to 200 thousand vaccine doses to the Republic of Moldova (an ex-Soviet, with a majority Romanian-speaking population). On the other hand, PM Cîţu mentioned the priority given by Romania to fulfilling the recommendations of the European Commission in order to finalize the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. He also reiterated Romanias priority objective of joining the Schengen area.
TENNIS – The Romanian-Brasilian team Horia Tecau/Marcelo Melo has today qualified to the fourth round of the Australian Open in the men’s doubles, after defeating the Moldovan-British team Radu Albot/Daniel Evans. Tecau and Melo will next be up against Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Filip Polasek of Slovakia. On Sunday, Romanian Simona Halep., no. 2 in the world, will play against the Polish Iga Swiatek, in the fourth round of the Australian Open. In 2018 Halep played the final in Melbourne while in 2020 she reached the semifinals. (EE)
