February 4, 2020
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 04.02.2020, 13:55
MOTION – The standing bureaus of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies and Senate are to establish today the calendar for the debate and vote on the no-confidence motion field by the Social Democrats against the Liberal Government headed by Ludovic Orban, after the latter assumed responsibility for the bill on the election of mayors in two rounds. Signed by 208 MPs, the motion titled The Orban Government/ NLP – the privatization of Romanian democracy was read on Monday, in plenary session of Parliament. The signatories say the Government must be urgently sacked, because, by changing the legislation right before the election, it violates the rulings of the Constitutional Court and the recommendations made by the European institutions. They say the decision was made with no debate, just by assuming responsibility and for political reasons only, and not to benefit the citizens. The Liberals claim that electing the mayors in two rounds will render them more legitimate and representative. At least 223 favorable votes are needed for the Government to be dismissed. The interim president of the Social Democratic Party, Marcel Ciolacu, has given assurances that the figure will be reached and, if the motion passes, the Social Democrats will propose a prime-minister from outside the party. Ludovic Orban has stated, though, that the Liberal MPs will vote in plain sight against the motion, which will not be adopted, for lack of sufficient votes. More on this after the news.
EU BUDGET- On Friday, Romanias president Klaus Iohannis will meet in Brussels with the European Council President Charles Michel. According to the Romanian presidential administration, the meeting will focus on negotiations over the 2021-2027 EU budget. This is part of a string of meetings that the president of the European Council is having with leaders of the EU member states with a view to preparing the extraordinary summit on February 20th, devoted to the next multi-annual budget.
CENTRAL BANK – The Romanian Central Banks currency reserves have increased by 8% as against last year. According to data provided by the bank, the level of the gold reserve has remained at 103.6 tonnes, worth some 5 billion Euros. At the end of last month, the banks hard currency reserve stood at 35.5 billion Euros, as compared to little under 32 billion in late 2019. The increase is due mainly to the collection of 3 billion Euros resulting from the Euro bonds emissions placed two weeks ago. Specialists say that, because of the size of its economy, Romania cannot place itself among the European countries with large international reserves, but its reserve is consolidated.
VISIT – The Romanian Health Minister Victor Costache has travelled to Paris, where, for three days, he will have meetings with French authorities and Romanian doctors working in France. He will have a discussion with his French counterpart Agnes Buzyn on the memorandum of understanding on health that the two countries will sign. The document provides for partnerships, exchanges of expertise and best practices in fields that are faced with problems, such as severe burns, transplants, pediatric heart surgery, medicine policies, the evaluation of medical technologies and the accreditation of health-care units. Also, the two officials will analyse means of ensuring cooperation between the two health-care systems on preventing the infection with the new coronavirus. The Romanian minister will also hold a speech at the conference titled Heart and vascular surgery in the age of minimally invasive techniques, hosted by the National Surgery Academy.
CORONAVIRUS – The Romanian Government is debating today a bill on ensuring the inventories needed to prevent cases of coronavirus infection in Romania. In the meantime, four Romanians have been removed from the hotspot in China, with help from the Swiss Diplomatic Mission to Beijing. According to the Romanian Foreign Ministry, one of them is in Germany, and three in France, and they will be in quarantine for 14 days. At global level, the death toll of the coronavirus infection has reached 425. So far, some 20,000 people have been infected.
COLECTIV – The victims of the fire that broke out at the Colectiv club in Bucharest in October 2015 will benefit from lifetime financial support from the Romanian state, to pay for their medical treatments, the Romanian Senate decided on Monday, by adopting a bill on this matter. According to the document, expenses for treatment in the country or abroad, in the private or public system, are to be covered by the Health Ministry. The decisive vote is to be cast by the Chamber of Deputies. 64 people died and several hundreds were wounded in the Colectiv fire.
FED CUP – Romanias Fed Cup tennis players have gathered for the matches due on Friday and Saturday in Cluj-Napoca, in north-western Romania, against the Russian team. The matches count towards qualification into the final tournament in Budapest on April 14-19. Ana Bogdan, Irina Bara, Gabriela Ruse, Raluca Olaru and Jaquline Cristian make up the Romanian team. Worlds no.2 Simona Halep has announced she will nto play for the Fed Cup this year, because she wants to focus on the Olympic Games in Tokyo, where she hopes to win a medal. The Russian squad is made up of Ekaterina Alexandrovna, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Veronika Kudemertova, Svetlana Kuznetzova and Anna Kalinskaya. Romania has never faced Russia at the Fed Cup.
