March 19, 2020

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Newsroom, 19.03.2020, 13:55

Bucharest Parliament — Romania’s Parliament is having an online joint session today aimed at analyzing the request of President Klaus Iohannis on declaring a state of emergency for 30 days. It is for the first time that such a special procedure is used for debate and remote electronic voting, which was approved on Monday by the joint permanent bureaus of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. In another development, the PM Ludovic Orban announced on Thursday increased penalties for those who prevent or thwart the effort of fighting the coronavirus epidemic as well as for those who make false declarations in relation to their possible contamination. The government also decided to increase the ceiling for guaranteeing credits for SMEs by almost 1 billion Euros. Also, the executive decided to ensure the payment of 75% of the gross salary for technical unemployment, but not more than 75% of the average gross salary, said Thursday the PM Ludovic Orban. So far 277 cases of COVID-19 infections have been reported on Romania’s territory, 25 people have recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospital.

MAE – The Romanian Foreign Ministry informs that 89 Romanian citizens returned home from Spain on Thursday, following the intervention of the Foreign and Transport Ministries’ officials. On Wednesday they facilitated the repatriation of 100 Romanian citizens: 74 from Malta and 26 from Egypt. According to the same source, the repatriations are part of the actions undertaken by the authorities to help the Romanian citizens who were abroad temporarily to return home and to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic. MAE reiterated appeals to the Romanian citizens to avoid unnecessary trips abroad and recommended the Romanian citizens who are temporarily away from home to urgently return home. Also, MAE calls on the Romanian citizens with their domicile or residence abroad to strictly observe the recommendations of the authorities of those states and underlines that travelling to Romania is not recommended.

Coronavirus world — At least 219,000 cases of COVID-19 infections have been confirmed around the world and more than 8,800 deaths. China has announced that the COVID-19 community spread has ended and the new cases reported are from those people who return from abroad. In Italy the number of victims nears the total number reported in the Hubei region in China, where the virus appeared. As many as 3,000 people have died in Italy, 475 in the past day alone, which points to the biggest death toll since the coronavirus outbreak in the north of the country. In France the number of people infected with COVID-19 is well beyond 9,000 with 264 deaths reported. The EU has closed its borders for foreign citizens and banned non-essential travel in the Schengen area in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus. In this context the European Central Bank announced an emergency plan of 750 billion Euros for public and private debt in a bid to control the economic impact of the pandemic. According to estimates, the GDP in the Euro zone might drop by 5% this year.

Romanian Academy — The president of the Romanian Academy Ioan-Aurel Pop says that in the context of this ‘hugely bad situation’ represented by the coronavirus pandemic, Romanians have had a lot to gain in terms of communication, dialogue and kindness. He has urged people to help instate a climate of law and order. In a Facebook post Ioan-Aurel Pop writes that ‘this is no time to lament, but this is time to better adapt to the situation and go on’.

Statistics – The population of Romania, according to the domicile criterion, numbered 22.175 million people on January 2020, lower by 0.1% as against the same month of 2019 – show data provided by the National Institute of Statistics on Thursday. At the reference date, the population residing in urban areas was of 12.5 million people. Also the process of population aging intensified as compared to January 1, 2019, with a slow drop in the share of young people and a small rise in the share of old people. (translation by L. Simion)