November 24, 2023 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 24.11.2023, 20:00
Immunity. MPs of the ruling Social-Democratic and Liberal parties announced they would vote to lift the immunity of former Liberal Prime Minister Florin Cîțu, so that anti-corruption prosecutors can launch criminal proceedings against him in an investigation into the purchase of anti-COVID vaccines during the pandemic. Former Health Ministers Vlad Voiculescu and Ioana Mihăilă, members of the Save Romania Union, are also accused of abuse of office, and president Klaus Iohannis needs to green-light the lifting of their immunity. Prosecutors say the three purchased more shots than necessary, causing a prejudice of 1 bln EUR. The three officials could have easily refused the millions of doses allotted to Romania by the EU, without our country having to pay penalties. The vaccines were purchased at a very difficult time during the pandemic, dominated by uncertainty regarding the evolution of the virus, the availability of mass-production of vaccines and the need for re-vaccination, Vlad Voiculescu explained. The former Health Minister blamed Florin Cîțu for taking the final decision, and in turn the former Liberal Prime Minister said every decision made during his mandate was in good faith and in compliance with the law.
Gaza. The Romanian Foreign Ministry has announced that following the complex efforts of the Inter-institutional Crisis Cell, through the Romanian Embassy in Cairo and the Romanian Representative Office in Ramallah, 12 Romanian citizens and their family members, evacuated from the Gaza Strip, have been transported to Romania on board a flight operated by the national company Tarom. The Bucharest government approved, on Thursday, the normative act on the basis of which financial aid is granted to Romanian citizens evacuated from the Gaza Strip. The 249 people, Romanian citizens and their families, will receive, starting next month, financial aid for food, accommodation and other needs. For food, each person, alone or from a family, will receive the sum of 600 lei, the equivalent of 120 euros. Families with up to five members will receive another 2,000 lei (around 400 euros) for accommodation, and those with more than five members will receive 3,000 lei (600 euros) for accommodation. This financial aid will be granted for four months.
Vehicles. The Romanian state offers the biggest subsidies in the European Union for the purchase of electric and hybrid cars, the state secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests, Bogdan Balanişcu, said on Friday. These are vouchers that can reach over 10,000 euros, for a Romanian citizen who wants to buy an electric car. It is a way to remove 250 thousand cars from the street and to stop the pollution that these old cars create, the official explained. According to the latest data sent by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, approximately 8,000 vehicles with zero CO2 emissions were registered in Romania in the first semester of 2023.
Timisoara. The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Nadia Murad, is the newest member of the academic community of Timișoara after being awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa title by the West University of the city of Timișoara, which is a European Capital of Culture in 2023. Nadia Murad is the first woman who had the strength and courage to condemn the atrocities committed by the Islamic State of Iraq. In 2014 she was sold by Daesh as a slave and lost her entire family. In her acceptance speech, Murad referred to the suffering of people abducted by ISIS and her efforts to improve the life of the Yazidi, a community she is a part of. Aged 30, Nadia Murad is the fifth Nobel Prize recipient to visit the city of Timișoara this year.
Visit. The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, ended his ten-day tour of African states in Senegal on Thursday. He has stated that the visits marked the beginning of a new approach for Romania towards the African continent and explained that through this tour he put Romania back on the African radar. In the last stage of his travels, Iohannis was received in Dakar by his Senegalese counterpart, Macky Sall. The Romanian president said that the Bucharest administration is going to intensify collaboration with Senegal in areas such as emergency management, education, research and innovation, cyber security, digital infrastructure, agriculture and food safety. Criticized by the opposition in the country for his tour of Africa, Iohannis stated that neglecting the relationship with African states represented “a strategic error in Romanias foreign policy”, a mistake he decided to rectify. He mentioned that Romania has a new strategy for Africa, which specifically targets traditional partners, including Senegal.
Chisinau. The Chisinau Parliament approved, on Friday, in the second reading, the legislative amendments regarding the application of international restrictive measures, recommended by the European Commission in the framework of the countrys EU accession negotiations. According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicu Popescu, the Republic of Moldova has aligned itself with 4 of the 6 sanctions packages that target citizens or legal entities from the Russian Federation. He also stated that Chisinau officials, together with the support of partners, will continue to make efforts to limit attempts to destabilize the country. The Diplomacy in Moscow has denounced joining the sanctions and accused the Moldovan authorities of wanting to completely destroy bilateral relations. (MI)
