July 10, 2021

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 10.07.2021, 13:55

Pandemic. 36 new Covid cases from some
24,000 tests were reported in Romania on Saturday, as well as 19 deaths, with
only one being recorded in the last 24 hours. 54 Covid patients are still in
intensive care. The Romanian government extended the state of alert nationwide
for a further 30 days from 12th July. The coordinator of the mass
vaccination campaign, dr. Valeriu
Gheorghiţă warned that Romania may see an increase in the number of new Covid
cases driven by the spread of the Delta variant. More than 4.8 million people
have received the Covid vaccine in Romania since the start of the vaccine
roll-out in late December, with at least 4.6 million being fully vaccinated.

Government. Prime minister Florin Cîţu has taken over the finance
ministry temporarily after sacking Liberal Alexandru Nazare for not fulfilling
the goals undertaken. Cîţu expects budget execution in all chapters, in every
ministry and public institution, and with regard to staff expenditure. He also
wants to be briefed on the situation of investment projects every five months.
Talks will be held next week to unblock finance ministry projects that were
delayed. The prime minister said he would continue to assess the activity of
ministers.

Survey. 75% of Romanians are in favour
of their country adopting the euro, according to a recent survey. This points
to the highest increase in the proportion in favour of introducing the euro
among EU countries. The survey was conducted in the seven EU states yet to
enter the eurozone, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary,
Poland, Romania and Sweden. A majority of EU citizens in eurozone countries
believes adopting the euro had positive consequences for their countries. The
highest support for the European single currency was in Romania, with 75%, and
Hungary, with 69%. The eurozone last expanded in 2015, when Lithuania became
the 19th EU member state to switch to the single European currency.
According to the 2020 convergence report, Romania falls short of meeting any of
the four economic conditions needed to adopt the euro, namely price stability,
sound public finances, exchange rate stability and convergence in long-term interest rates.

Football. Italy and England are playing the
European Football Championship final hosted by London’s Wembley stadium on
Sunday. In the semis, England defeated Denmark 2-1 in extra-time, while Italy
defeated Spain 4-2 on penalties. Bucharest hosted four Euro 2020 matches, three
in the group stage and one in the round of last 16. The president of the
European Commission Ursula von der Leyen hopes Italy
beats England in the final, her spokesperson said. EU officials usually
avoid taking positions, but the UK’s exit from the Union made von der Leyen’s
allegiance to founding EU member Italy inevitable, Reuters notes. (CM)