February 22, 2021

VACCINE. A new tranche of 200,000 dozes of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine has arrived in Romania today. According to the National Committee for the Coordination of Vaccination Activities, the total doses administered so far, to more than 800 thousand people, exceeds 1.3 million. The Minister of Education, Sorin Cîmpeanu, has stated that approximately 60,000 people employed in the education system want to be vaccinated against COVID-19 next week. According to the minister, in a first phase, the teaching staff from primary, secondary, high school and university education benefit from priority vaccination in mobile centers. He has stated that  more than 200,000 employees in the education system have expressed their readiness for vaccination. 42,000 have already been vaccinated. In another development, about 1,600 new cases of coronavirus have been reported today. In total, since the beginning of the pandemic in Romania, about a year ago, over 780,000 cases of infection have been registered in this country.

BUDGET. The Romanian Liberal Prime Minister Florin Cîţu has announced that the draft state and social insurance budgets are to reach Parliament today, after being amended  by the Legislative Council. He has expressed hope that parliament will adopt the document as soon as possible and said that, as far as he knows, the representatives of the PNL - USR PLUS UDMR coalition will not table amendments. Regarding the amendments requested by the Social Democratic opposition, the head of the Government considers that they could take Romania out of the European Union. According to Florin Cîţu, the budgetary impact would stand at 6% and would lead the deficit to 13 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, which is not possible. The projected deficit is 7.1% of the GDP. In another move, the first vice-president of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Sorin Grindeanu, has stated that the Social Democrats will submit a simple motion against the Minister of Economy, Claudiu Năsui, after the debate and approval of the budget. He is accused of blocking a € 500 million funding program.

EU. The Romanian Foreign Minister, Bogdan Aurescu, is attending in Brussels a meeting with his counterparts from the member states of the European Union, on the relations with Moscow. According to the Romanian Foreign Ministry, he will stress that the EU-Russia relations are at a turning point, as well as the need for European unity, in order to maintain the Union's credibility as a foreign policy actor. Following the expulsion of three European diplomats from Russia this month, just as EU foreign policy chief Josep Borell was on a visit there, Minister Aurescu will call for new restrictive measures against Moscow and will emphasize the need for stronger political engagement with ex-Soviet states from the Eastern Partnership, including the Republic of Moldova (mostly Romanian-speaking). Before the meeting, Aurescu will participate, together with European counterparts, in an informal meeting with representatives of the team of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny. On Saturday, Navalny, listed as the Kremlin's main political opponent, received two sentences in a single day: two and a half years in prison, in a fraud case, which he says was politically fabricated, and a 9,500 euro fine, on charges of defaming a supporter of President Vladimir Putin, a nonagenarian veteran of the Soviet army in World War II.

PROTESTS. Union protests continue in Romania this week. Some of the miners stranded underground for several days in Lupeni (southwest) announce that they will go on hunger strike if they do not receive their salaries and other outstanding benefits. In this regard, a new round of meetings is taking place today at the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Labor. The approximately 70 miners who are protesting underground in the Lupeni mine, some of them on the fifth day, have received water and food from the Red Cross and other organizations, and their health is being monitored by mine rescuers. The protesters are dissatisfied with the delay in wages for the current month and the fact that they have not received for almost 10 months some rights provided in the collective labor agreement, such as heating allowance, transport money and meal vouchers. Also, dissatisfied with salaries and the allocation of funds, the unions in the Penitentiary Police have announced  a rally in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice today, followed by other protest actions in the following days.

INVESTIGATION. An investigation is underway at the "Marius Nasta" Institute in Bucharest, following the incident on Sunday evening, when the air conditioning installation of the mobile unit for treating patients with COVID-19 started smoking heavily. The intervention teams acted quickly and closed the unit, and the patients were moved to the hospital building. No one was injured. The Minister of Health, Vlad Voiculescu, claims that it was a minor incident. The event followed another one, in January, also in Bucharest, when a fire broke out at the "Matei Balş" National Institute of Infectious Diseases. Several halls burned and the whole building was affected by smoke. A similar tragedy took place in November, at the emergency hospital in Piatra Neamţ (northeast). Both fires resulted in numerous casualties.

ARMY. The main equipment of the first High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), which will be part of the Romanian Army, will be transported to the headquarters of the 81st Missile Battalion "Maior Gheorghe Şonţu" in Focsani (southeast). This is the first unit of the Romanian Land Forces that will have this system. The first elements arrived, at the end of last week, in the Black Sea Port of Constanta. They will be transported on land under the coordination of US and Romanian specialized structures. Romania bought two years ago, from the American company Lockheed Martin, three artillery systems based on HIMARS surface-to-ground rockets, at the price of about 1.5 billion dollars.

TENNIS. Romanian tennis player Simona Halep went down to third place in the world ranking of professional tennis players (WTA), published today. The second position is now held by the Japanese Naomi Osaka, who won the title at the Australian Open on Saturday. We recall  that Halep stopped in the quarterfinals of the first grand slam tournament of the year. The Australian Ashleigh Barty remains the WTA leader. Romania has 4 more representatives in the top 100: Patricia Ţig, Sorana Cîrstea, Irina Begu and Ana Bogdan. (M.I)