July 15, 2021 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 15.07.2021, 20:05

CEREMONY An airshow part of the military parade next
week, to mark Romania’s Aviation Day on July 20th and the end of the
Romanian mission in Afghanistan on July 21st, has been cancelled
through an order by the Defence Minister. The decision came after the incident
on Thursday when a US helicopter on a training mission had to make an emergency
landing in downtown Bucharest. Nobody was wounded in the incident and the
material damage was low. Only two lampposts fell and damaged cars. The end of
Romania’s mission in Afghanistan will be marked through a military parade in
Bucharest by the army structures which carried out various missions in this
country starting 2002 until June this year, when the last Romanian soldiers
were repatriated. 27 Romanian servicemen have been killed in action in
Afghanistan and over 200 have been wounded since the first deployment of
Romanian troops in this country.

COMMISSIONER Romania must double its vaccination efforts this summer as only
30% of its adult population has been vaccinated says the European Commissioner
for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides who is to pay a visit to Romania
on Friday. According to this EU official, the highly-contagious Delta variant,
which has been identified in Europe represents a major risk for people who
haven’t got the jab. Vaccination is the most powerful weapon against virus
variants, the European Commissioner went on to say. According to a communiqué
issued by the European Commission Representation in Bucharest, EU Commissioner
Kyriakides will be meeting Health Minister Ioana Mihaila and pay a visit to the
vaccination center in Petresti, southern Romania. The talks will be focusing on
the EU’s vaccine strategy, Romania’s vaccine rollout as well as the guidelines provided
by the European Health Union.

COVID-19 Only 62 new Covid-19 infections were reported on Thursday in Romania out
of roughly 25 thousand tests conducted. Authorities have also announced three
Covid-related fatalities. 300 patients are being treated in hospitals and 54 in
ICUs. In spite of the small number of infections, authorities in Romania are
fearing the highly-contagious Delta variant, which is to become dominant in autumn.
In their opinion, the only way to prevent this situation is to vaccinate as
many people as they possibly can until autumn. Since the vaccine rollout kicked
off in Romania on December 27th 2020, 4.7 million people have been vaccinated
in Romania and since authorities are far from being satisfied with the number, they
have been constantly looking for ways to step up the vaccine rollout in this
country.

CLIMATE The European Commission on Wednesday proposed
ambitious measures to reach its climate goals. Together with the distribution
of national targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, these are likely to be
subject of heated debates among the 27 EU member states, Reuters notes. The
proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% compared with 1990 include
increasing costs for emissions generated by heating, transport and the
industrial sector, taxing the fuel used in air and naval travel and banning,
from 2035, the sale of new diesel and petrol cars. In Romania’s case, the
target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will increase from 2% to 12.7%. The
plan will be negotiated with member states and the European Parliament.

(bill)