November 8, 2021 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

România Internațional, 08.11.2021, 20:12

Covid-19. The Romanian
Government has decided to extend by another 30 days the state of alert across
the country, as of Tuesday, November 9th. The measures taken
previously stay in place, including the obligation to wear protective masks
both indoors and outdoors, access to certain activities only based on the digital
Covid certificate and shorter working hours for shops. More than 4,200 new
cases of Covid-19 and 241 related deaths were reported on Monday. The number of
daily infections seems to be going down, but so does the population’s interest
in getting vaccinated.

Green certificate. Romanian MPs on Monday started debating the bill that would
make the digital Covid certificate compulsory at the workplace. The document
will be first analyzed by the expert committees and then voted on in the
Chamber of Deputies. The bill was previously rejected in the Senate. It
stipulates that employees who refuse to present the Covid certificate at the
workplace can have their labor contract suspended for up to 30 days, without
pay. If they fail to present the certificate after this period, they can be
fired if they work in the public system and they can be either fired or have
their suspension period extended if they work in the private system. People who
do not want to get vaccinated, will have to get tested regularly and pay the
tests themselves.

School. The interim Minister of Education, Sorin Cimpeanu, has
announced that he proposed at Monday’s Government meeting to have the 60%
vaccination rate obligation lifted for the localities where the infection rate
is below 3 per one thousand inhabitants. The measure would be adopted at the
end of the week, by means of a decision issued by the National Emergency
Situations Committee and will take into account the epidemiological situation. In
Romania, pupils returned to school only in those units where at least 60% of
the staff members are vaccinated. So, out of 3 million pupils, only 1.8 million
can attend physical classes, and the others will keep on attending online
classes. The Education Ministry has ordered verifications in schools to check
the observance of the sanitary measures, and has announced that non-invasive
tests for pupils and teachers will be soon distributed, for them to get tested
twice a week.

Consultations. The United States can count on Romania, said on Monday, in Washington, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu. In turn, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed that the United States and Romania are ‘robust allies in NATO’ and are working closely on many issues. The two had consultations during the two-day visit that the Romanian minister is making to the United States. The visit marks the official opening of the seventh meeting of the Romania-US Strategic Dialogue for the implementation of the Joint Declaration on the Strategic Partnership for the 21st Century between Romania and the United States, established in 2011. The consultations aimed to identify concrete ways to develop and deepen bilateral cooperation in the political, security, military and energy fields, strengthening economic cooperation, including the promotion of priority strategic interconnection projects for Romania – Rail2Sea ​​and Via Carpathia, as well as in the field of civil nuclear power. Recent security developments have been addressed, with a focus on the Black Sea region and security on NATO’s Eastern Flank, and coordination within NATO, including with regard to negotiations over the New Strategic Concept. A visa waiver for Romanians traveling to the United States and the COVID pandemic were also on the agenda of talks.

Automotive. In Romania, car registrations increased by 0.7% in the first ten
months of the year, compared to the same period in 2020, and electrified
vehicles recorded a jump of 94%, according to data centralized by the
Association of Manufacturers and Importers of Automobiles (APIA), published on
Monday. Electrified vehicles, both electric (100% and plug-in hybrids), as well
as the full hybrid ones (with electric propulsion without charging from an
external source) now have a market share of 12.8%. Gasoline cars still have the
largest market share.

Tennis. Romanian tennis player Jaqueline Cristian qualified, on Monday, for
the eighth finals of the WTA 250 tournament in Linz (Austria), with about
190,000 euro in prize money, after
defeating Kamila Rahimova (Russia), in three sets. Cristian entered the main draw
from the position of lucky loser. Another Romanian, Simona Halep, the tournament’s
second seed, will face the Belarusian Aleksandra Sasnovici directly in the
eighth round.