March 19, 2021 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 19.03.2021, 20:09

Covid-19RO. Some 5,600 new cases of COVID-19 were registered in Romania in 24 hours, out of 38,670 tests run nationwide, which means an infection rate of 14.46%, the Strategic Communication Group announced on Friday. Also, 143 Covid-19 related fatalities were reported during the same 24-hour interval. The number of people currently in intensive care has exceeded 1,300, a national record since the start of the pandemic. Over 887,000 people have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Romania since last year. Bucharest and another eight counties are in the so-called red scenario, where the incidence of the virus exceeds 3 per one thousand inhabitants. Several localities around the capital city are now under lockdown. In another move, starting December 27, 2020, over 1.6 million people have been vaccinated in Romania, mostly with Pfizer- BioNTech and Moderna, but also AstraZeneca. On Monday, the vaccination campaign entered its third stage, for the general population. For the time being, the campaign is carried out in localities where the incidence rate exceeds 4.5 per one thousand inhabitants. The rest of the population can register on waiting lists on the online platform.

AstraZeneca. The benefits of the Covid-19 vaccine produced by AstraZeneca outweigh the risks, is the conclusion reached on Friday by WHO experts. Several European countries, including France, Germany and Spain, have announced they will resume vaccination with the AstraZeneca serum, after European pharmaceutical agencies stated the vaccine is safe and effective. On Thursday, the European Medicines Agency expressed confidence that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks, following concerns after blood clots were identified in people who were given the serum. So far, over 45 million doses of AstraZeneca have been administered in the European Economic Area.

CVM. The European Commission supports the lifting of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism monitoring the Romanian judiciary by the end of 2021, Prime Minister Florin Cîţu said on a Facebook post. The announcement follows a meeting with European Commission vice-president, Vera Jourová. Florin Cîţu says the Government wants to eliminate and repair the amendments brought to the justice laws over 2017-2019, and shares the Commission’s desire to finalize by mid-2021 all commitments regarding the rule of law. The European Commission has mainly recommended the elimination of the Special Section Investigating Crime in Justice, the updating of the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code, continuing the fight against corruption and defending freedom and pluralism of the press.

Plan. The Government in Bucharest held a special meeting on Friday to discuss the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Prime Minister Florin Cîţu stated after the meeting that next week, the Government will adopt by means of a memorandum the mandate for the negotiation of the program. He also stated that the NRRP, which represents Romania’s priorities, allocates major resources for road and rail infrastructure, motorways, the gas network, the building of new hospitals, and also for social measures. The document has to be submitted to the European Commission in April, for Romania to benefit from more than 30 million Euro for development until 2026, when all the projects included in the plan must be completed.

Visit. On Friday, the Romanian Interior Minister Lucian Bode paid a visit to Italy. During the meeting with his counterpart Luciana Lamorgese, he stated that Romania was expecting the EU to recognize, by quickly adopting the Decision on the country’s joining the Schengen agreement, the essential role it played in the EU’s security architecture. We recall that Romania’s and Bulgaria’s joining the Schengen area, initially set for March 2011, has been repeatedly postponed, because of the opposition of several member countries, claiming the lack of judiciary reforms in these countries. As regards the current situation of the migration flows into the EU, Lucian Bode gave assurances that the situation on Romania’s borders is under control and permanent monitoring. In another move, Lucian Bode stressed the fact that the largest Romanian community outside Romania’s borders lives in Italy, and their presence in the peninsula is a vector of the consolidated strategic partnership that Romania has with Italy.

Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated he is ready to hold online talks with the American President Joe Biden, Reuters reports. The White House, on the other hand, says Biden doesn’t regret calling the Kremlin leader a killer. Moreover, Moscow believes Biden’s statements are a clear sign that Washington isn’t in the least interested in fixing relations with Moscow. On Wednesday, Russia recalled its ambassador to the United States for consultations, expressing at the same time its willingness to avoid an irreversible degradation of relations with the USA.

Vacation. Greece will open in mid-April for tourists coming from the EU, including Romanians, Charis Theocharis, Greece’s tourism minister, told a news conference in Bucharest on Friday. The Athens official is visiting Romania at the invitation of his counterpart Claudiu Năsui. Initially, Greece announced that it would open its borders to tourists starting May 14, if the evolution of the pandemic allows it. Charis Theocharis also said that entry into Greece will only be allowed to those who before the trip were either vaccinated or acquired antibodies following a coronavirus infection or will have a negative test result for a recent COVID-19 test. He pointed out that all tourists can be subjected to random tests, in the same way as last year. However, a significant difference compared to 2020 are the rapid tests, due to which the quarantine, for positive cases, will be instituted immediately, without the waiting time of 24 hours, the Greek minister said. He stated that Romania is the first country he visits after finalizing the plan to open the tourist season in Greece. Romania is one of the five largest markets for Greece, as in 2019, almost 1.4 million Romanians chose to spend their holidays in that country.

Tennis. Romanian tennis player Jaqueline Cristian (160 WTA) was defeated on Friday by Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia (39 WTA), in the quarterfinals of the WTA 500 tournament in St. Petersburg, with 565 thousand dollars in prize money. That is still Jaqueline Cristian’s best performance of her career. On Thursday, she had ousted Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, a former winner at Roland Garros and seeded 6th in the competition. (MI)