September 28, 2021

A roundup of local and international news.

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Newsroom, 28.09.2021, 13:55

Covid-19. Romania today began to administer the vaccine booster shot as
the country is struggling with the fourth wave of the pandemic, amid a steep
rise in new cases and hospital admissions. The incidence rate in some 600 towns
and villages passed 3 per 1,000 inhabitants over 14 days. One village in Ilfov
county, near Bucharest, and another in Prahova county, in the south, saw 8 cases
per 1,000 inhabitants. The incidence rate is between 7 and 8 cases per 1,000
inhabitants in Timişoara, in the west, and four other big cities around the
country, while Bucharest passed 5.

Certificate.
The European Covid certificate may become mandatory for Romanian healthcare
staff working in the public and state sectors, under a new bill proposed by the
health ministry. The certificate serves as proof that a person is fully jabbed
against Covid, has tested negative for the virus or has recovered from the
infection in the last six months. Employees who do not meet either of the three
conditions face suspension for a month and even termination later on. The bill
also stipulates that the staff will have to pay themselves for the Covid tests.
Employers will only cover testing costs for persons who are advised against getting
the vaccine for health reasons.

Resignation.
The Liberal Adrian Oros resigned as minister of agriculture and rural
development, saying that for prime minister Florin Cîţu, agriculture and the
food industry were never priorities. He says the ministry’s budget for this
year is 60% that of last year, which has a negative impact on ongoing projects,
and that no major project in agriculture was included in the National Plan for
Recovery and Resilience. Adrian Oros was the only minister in the Cîţu cabinet
to support Ludovic Orban as leader of the National Liberal Party. Cîţu won the
leadership of the party for the next four years. At the beginning of September,
the Save Romania Union and PLUS withdrew from the ruling coalition with the
Liberals and the Democratic Union and Ethnic Hungarians in Romania following a
disagreement over a regional development fund and filed a no-confidence motion
in Parliament, refusing to return to government with Cîţu as prime minister.

Motion. The Constitutional Court today accepted a complaint from prime
minister Florin Cîţu of a legal conflict between Parliament and
government with respect to the no-confidence motion filed by the Save Romania
Union and PLUS and the Alliance for the Union of Romanians. Cîţu says the
initiation and submission of the motion violated the Constitution. The two
parties who filed the motion say they are going to submit a new one if the
Constitutional Court rules against them. The Democratic Union of Ethnic
Hungarians in Romania, who has remained in government alongside the Liberal Party,
called for the immediate restoration of the coalition to overcome the political
crisis. The Social Democratic Party, in opposition, today filed its own
no-confidence motion against the Cîţu government.

Exercise. A Romanian-Ukrainian exercise called Riverine 2021 is taking
place on the Danube river, between Tulcea, in Romania, and Izmail, in Ukraine,
involving military river boats, helicopters, divers and marines from the two
countries. Some 600 staff are taking part in tactical manoeuvres in keeping with
NATO operational standards and are training for emergency interventions. The
exercise aims to consolidate bilateral military cooperation in the naval area
and improve the capacity of the Romanian Navy staff to respond, fast and
efficiently, to a wide range of threats on NATO’s south-eastern flank.

Debate. The Romanian foreign ministry and the European Institute of
Romania are today hosting a debate on post-pandemic solutions for the economy,
as part of events under the Conference on the Future of Europe. The aim of the
debate is to analyse the effects of the pandemic on economic policies and the
implications of the health crisis on contemporary economic thought and
reasoning. The Conference on the Future of Europe is a platform for debate and
discussion held at citizens’ initiative, with every European being able to
share their ideas about the future of the Union. (CM)