December 6, 2020

Parliamentary elections are taking place in Romania today – and other local and international news.

Newsroom, 06.12.2020, 13:43

Elections. More than 18 million
voters are expected today at the polls in over 18,000 polling stations around Romania
to elect a new Parliament. The Romanians living abroad can cast their votes
over the course of two days. More than 740,000 Romanian nationals residing
abroad are eligible to vote in these elections. Of this figure, some 39,000
have registered for postal voting. The foreign ministry has set up 748 polling
stations abroad and launched an interactive map of these stations and a hotline
for Romanian voters abroad. In Romania, the voters in the areas that are in
lockdown are able to travel freely to the voting stations, without having to
fill in a written declaration stating the purpose of travel. Voters are all
obliged to comply with the special protection measures taken by the authorities
in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. 136 senator and 329 deputy seats are up for
election, including 4 deputies and 2 senators representing the Romanian diaspora.
The members of the future Parliament are elected through party-list
proportional representation. Three hours before polls close,
voter turnout was 27%.

Romania Covid-19 update. More
than 510.000 coronavirus infections have been recorded in Romania since the
start of the pandemic. Sunday saw 5,231 new cases 134 new
fatalities, which takes the death toll to 12,320. 1,289people are receiving
intensive care treatment. Less than 10,000 doses of convalescent plasma have
been collected from donors in Romania. According to the National Institute of
Transfusion Haematology, only 1% of the people infected with the novel
coronavirus have donated plasma. Official figures also show that
more than 650 people in Romania have recovered after being treated with
convalescent plasma.

Travel. Travellers to Italy from
Romania or who have transited Romania will no longer have to self-isolate for
14 days if they can produce a negative test result for Covid-19 when entering
the country. According to the Romanian foreign ministry, these measures are in
place until January 15th next year. Given that the Italian
authorities have given no details as to what the document proving the negative
result must look like, the Romanian foreign ministry recommends that the
document must be in Italian or English.

Protest. A protest called by the
pro-western president elect of the Republic of Moldova Maia Sandu and supported
by most opposition parties took place today in the capital city Chisinau.
The participants demanded the resignation of the pro-Moscow Socialist
government and the dissolution of Parliament, following the adoption of some controversial
bills. According to Radio Romania’s correspondents in Chisinau, a pro-Russian
majority formed by MPs supporting the outgoing president Igor Dodon and the fugitive
oligarch Ilan Şor
voted to take away the Intelligence and Security Service from under the
subordination of the president, to consolidate the status of the Russian
language and to diminish the share of Romanian language programmes on public
television. The European Union has noted that the bills in question were
supported by persons identified as having been involved in corruption and in
the huge 2014 banking fraud and called on all decision makers in the Republic
of Moldova to respect the rule of law and guarantee democracy, in line with the
expectation of the people. The Republic of Moldova is a former Soviet republic
with a majority Romanian speaking population.

Handball. Romania will be playing
Norway on Monday in their final Group D match at the European Women’s Handball
Championship under way in Denmark. Romania are sure to advance to the next
stage after defeating Poland 28:24 on Saturday in Kolding. In the
championship’s opening matches on Thursday, Romania lost to Germany and Poland
lost to Norway. The three best-ranked teams qualify for the next stage. (CM)