14 February, 2020

A roundup of the main stories in Romania today.

Newsroom, 14.02.2020, 13:55

Conference. Romania’s acting prime minister Ludovic Orban has attended
as a guest of honour the Munich Europe Conference in Germany where the spoke
about his country’s solid European profile. According to a government
statement, Orban underlined Romania’s active involvement in efforts to
consolidate the European Union and its major policies and to improve cohesion
among member states. The Europe Conference, which is organised as part of the
56th edition of the Munich Security Conference, has been held for
the last 15 years and brings together top level representatives of political
and business circles. The prime minister, who is accompanied by foreign
minister Bogdan Aurescu, is also due to meet in Munich counterparts from a
number of states and representatives of the business community.

Brexit. Almost 500,000 Romanians had applied, by the end of January, for
residency in the UK as part of the settlement scheme made available by the UK
government to European citizens wishing to continue to live in this country
after 31st of December. The foreign ministry in Bucharest said in a
statement that 63,000 people applied in January. The deadline for submitting
applications is 30th June 2021 for the European citizens reaching UK
territory by 31st December this year.

Coronavirus. China’s revised death toll of the new coronavirus today neared
1,400. Some 64,000 cases of infection have been recorded so far in continental
China, excluding Hong Kong and Macao, which marks a sharp rise over the last
two days, as a result of a new benchmark to measure the outbreak. In Bucharest,
the health minister has announced that no case of infection has been reported
in Romania. The foreign ministry says a Romanian citizen from the Diamond
Princess cruise vessel, found in the Japanese territorial waters, tested positive
for the new pneumonia virus. He was transferred for isolation and treatment to
a Japanese hospital specialising in such situations. Romania’s diplomatic
mission in Japan is in contact with the Romanian citizen in hospital and the
other Romanian nationals on board the vessel.

Protest. A number of environmental groups are today staging a rally in
central Bucharest asking the authorities to take urgent measures to reduce air
pollution in the capital city. Environmentalists say their action comes amid
alarming spikes in pollution levels and in protest against the fact that the
authorities provide insufficient air quality data. The organisers of the rally
demand environmentally friendly public transport, bike lanes, pedestrian
infrastructure, more green areas and proper air quality monitoring. On
Thursday, the environment minister Costel Alexe admitted that the national air
quality monitoring system does not function properly, which can affect that
accuracy of the data collected, especially in big cities. Bucharest’s mayor
Gabriela Firea claims, however, that air quality has improved in Bucharest in
recent years.

Economy. The growth rate of the Romanian economy slowed down to 4.1%
last year after rising to 4.4% in 2018 and 7.1% in 2017, according to estimates
by the National Institute for Statistics published today. In November last
year, the National Commission for Strategy and Prognosis revised its economic
growth forecasts for last year down to under 4% compared with the 5.5% level
estimated in its spring forecast. On Thursday, the European Commission said
Romania saw a 3.9% economic growth rate in 2019 compared with 4.4% in 2018,
according to winter forecasts. The economic growth level is expected to
continue to slow down in Romania this year and the next.

Corruption. The former Social
Democratic health minister Mircea Beuran has been detained by anti-corruption
prosecutors for bribe taking. He is accused of receiving 10,000
euros to propose holding a recruitment contest for the position of assistant
teacher at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest and making sure
the person giving the bribe gets the job. Beuran was the head of the surgery
department at a Bucharest hospital until last month, when he was sacked after a
patient died as a result of burns sustained while on the operating table. In
2003 when he was minister, a specialist committee established that one of his
books was plagiarised. In another move, the former president of the National
Commission for Prognosis, Ion Ghizdeanu, is under criminal investigation for
fraud. He is accused of forging more
than 1,000 memos needed by the local authorities around the country to obtain
funding under the Development and Investment Fund. (CM)