April 6, 2020

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 06.04.2020, 13:55

CORONAVIRUS IN ROMANIA – President Klaus Iohannis is today chairing a new meeting analyzing
measures to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, jointly with the Prime Minister and
Government members. The death toll in Romania has reached 157. According to the
latest data centralized by the Group for Strategic Communication, the total
number of infections stands at 4,057 confirmed cases, of whom 406 people have
recovered. Some 24,000 people are quarantined and another 106,000 are under
medical monitoring in home isolation. 627 Romanian citizens abroad have tested
positive for COVID-19 and 29 have died.

CORONAVIRUS WORLDWIDE – Some 1,2 million people have contracted the coronavirus at global
level and 70,000 have died to the virus, France Press reports. Europe is facing
the most difficulties at present, with Italy, Spain and France reporting half
of the total number of deaths at global level. In Italy the number of infected
is going down every day. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent in Rome,
the authorities want to keep restrictions in place until May 9. In Spain too
the number of deaths has been on the wane for the past four days, and the
situation seems to improve in France as well, with the exception of Paris,
where the number of sick continues to rise. Some patients are being transferred
to other regions of the country as well as abroad. The United States is also
facing serious problems, the local death toll standing at nearly 10,000. The
authorities say the epidemic has not reached its peak and speak of a nationwide
impact similar to the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks.

ADJUSTMENT – The Liberal Government is today analyzing
the budget adjustment draft law, which is necessary to continue the fight
against the pandemic. Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said the Government session
today will also address a draft emergency decree under which bonuses will be
paid to medical and auxiliary staff treating the coronavirus sick. The bonuses
will be paid using European funds, which will also be employed to purchase
medical equipment and materials used to treat the sick. Under the same decree
the state will be able to recover the money paid to companies whose employees
have applied for technical unemployment benefits during the state of emergency.

AGRICULTURE – Two Romanian counties, Calarasi and
Ialomita, both in southeast, are among the EU’s regions most specialized in
agriculture, a recent Eurostat report reads. Ileia on Greece’s western coast is
the country with the highest agricultural activity in Europe, followed by
Silistra in northeastern Bulgaria. In 2017, Caralasi accounted for 20.4% of the
region’s gross value added coming from agriculture.

CORONABONDS – EU Commissioner for the Internal
Market, Thierry Breton of France and the EU Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni of Italy, have called on the
27 Member States to prove their solidarity by setting up a pan-European aid
programme capable of issuing long-term bonds in response to the coronavirus
crisis. Their plea was published in an article released by Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung and Le Monde. At the same time, the President of France’s
National Assembly, Richard Ferrand and the President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang
Schauble, have pleaded for more financial solidarity and integration in Europe,
in a press article carried by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Le Figaro,
France Press reports. The two officials pointed out that all instruments at
EU’s disposal must be used to deal with the emergencies arisen and to convey a
message of solidarity across the EU. EU members have called on Germany and other
states in northern Europe to back the so-called coronabonds, under which
certain debt will be mutualized in order to deal with the effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Germany, the Netherlands and other wealthy northern states
have ruled out calls to create a common debt instrument.

(Translated
by V. Palcu)