March 1, 2021 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news.
Newsroom, 01.03.2021, 20:00
BUDGET – The Romanian Parliament debated on Monday this years state budget and social security budget bills proposed by the government, with the final vote expected to be held on Tuesday. The bills were approved by the specialist committees without any of the over 3,500 amendments filed by the opposition, which accuses the government of pushing for an austerity budget. The government instead describes it as fostering development and reform. Finance minister Alexandru Nazare says the state budget is aimed at economic recovery and does not contain tax rises or salary cuts.The head of the opposition Social Democratic Party, Marcel Ciolacu, says in turn the government proposes a shameful and unlawful budget bill. The Prime Minister, however, has explained that record amounts are allocated to investment because it is the only way to obtain economic growth. He has also said that reforms, investment and healthcare are the priorities of his centre-right cabinet.
SENTENCE — Former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, on Monday was sentenced to three years in prison, two of them suspended, for corruption and influence peddling, international news agencies report. According to the Court, Sarkozy forged a “corruption pact” with his lawyer and a senior magistrate to obtain information on a separate investigation into political donations. All three of them received the same sentence, which can be appealed. Sarkozy, aged 66, had repeatedly declared his innocence. He is the first former president to serve time in jail. In 2011, Jacques Chirac received a 2-year suspended sentence over fake jobs at City Hall.
VACCINATION – A further 130 vaccination hubs will be opening from 1st March in Romania, where over 915,000 people have received the Covid vaccine using mostly the Pfizer-BioNTech jab. The Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines are also available in Romania. 214,000 Pfizer-BioNTech doses were delivered to Romania on Monday. The coordinator of the mass immunisation campaign dr. Valeriu Gheorghiţă said the general population will be able to make vaccination appointments on the digital platform from the middle of the month, with actual vaccination as part of phase three due to kick off in April. On the other hand, specialists are warning that Romania is on the verge of the third wave of the Covid pandemic and are calling on the population to comply with the restrictions in place and continue to observe the three basic rules: wear facemasks, wash hands and maintain physical distance. Romania has seen over 804,000 coronavirus cases to date and over 20,400 deaths, with almost 2,100 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. Some 1,000 Covid patients are in intensive care.
TRAVEL – Italy enforced on Monday a number of regional restrictions to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Lombardy, Marche and Piedmont will now be in the amber zone, and the Basilicata and Molise, which are in the red zone, will be in effect cut off from the rest of the country. According to Radio Romanias correspondent in Italy, the island of Sardinia is the only region with a low number of infections. The Italian government is preparing to announce a set of measures for a whole month, including the Easter holidays. Germany is restricting travel on the border with France after a French border region was declared a high-risk area for the spread of Covid. France managed to negotiate however more relaxed measures compared with those imposed by Germany on its Czech and Austrian borders. According to worldometers.info, there are over 114 million global coronavirus cases, while the death toll surpassed 2.5 million.
PTOTESTS – Romanian healthcare workers staged protests on Monday and in Bucharest during the debates on this years budget in Parliament. Protests will be resumed on Tuesday. Their aim is to convince MPs to pass the changes proposed by trade unions, namely more money for healthcare and pay rises for healthcare workers. Protesters are also demanding measures that have to do with staff safety, including the provision of protective equipment and material and human resources, in order to reduce the number of new Covid cases and fatalities among healthcare workers.
AUTOMOTIVE – Renaults Dacia factories in Mioveni, in southern Romania, will suspend production for five days this month and most probably in April again, amid the ongoing global shortage of computer chips for cars. Only the departments making gear boxes and engines for other Renault models will remain in operation.
GAUDEAMUS – The Gaudeamus Book Fair organised by Radio Romania started on Monday. Held entirely online at gaudeamus.ro, on the Facebook page Radio Romania Gaudeamus and on the participants’ social networks, the fair lasts for a whole month. It brings together over 70 Romanian publishing houses and dozens of events and book launches. The themes of the fair this year are non-fiction books, poetry and childrens books. The lineup of the first day of the festival featured an interview with the American writer Ali Standish, the author of the young adult book “The Ethan I Was Before”. (EE)
