December 28, 2020
A news roundup
Newsroom, 28.12.2020, 13:55
Visit — The Romanian President Klaus Iohannis is paying an official visit to the Republic of Moldova on Tuesday at the invitation of his Moldovan counterpart, pro-western Maia Sandu. It is the first high level visit for Maia Sandu after she took over the presidential seat following the November 15 elections, when she defeated the former pro-Russian Socialist president Igor Dodon. According to the Romanian Presidential Administration, the Romanian President’s visit to Chisinau will provide the framework for conveying a strong message of support for the new Moldovan president and the Moldovan citizens, in their effort for democratization, for the irreversible implementation of the rule of law principles, for consolidating Moldova’s European path and its privileged relation with Romania. The two presidents will adopt a Joint Declaration aimed at consolidating the bilateral strategic partnership. Holding dual citizenship, Moldovan and Romanian, an economist with an MA in public administration at Harvard, a former advisor to the executive director of the World Bank, a former minister and prime minister of the Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu became, at 48, the first woman president of Moldova, three decades after the country proclaimed its independence from Moscow.
COVID-19 Romania — More than 2,600 new cases of COVID-19 were reported on Monday in Romania after more than 7,700 were made, which means an infection rate of more than 34%. Another 104 people have died in the past 24 hours, with 1,197 patients being in ICUs. So far 618,400 people have been contaminated and over 15,300 have died from COVID-19. Almost 85% of those diagnosed with COVID-19 have recovered. This is the second day of the anti-COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Romania. On Sunday, on the first day, as many as 1,000 medical staff were vaccinated and none of them had any side effects, the National Committee for Coordinating Anti-COVID-19 Vaccination Activities announced. According to the committee, more vaccine doses will arrive in Romania on Tuesday. The first 10 thousand doses arrived on Saturday in Bucharest from where they were distributed across the country.
Session — The new government coalition in Bucharest headed by the Liberal Florin Citu is meeting today for their first official session. The government intends to adopt an emergency decree meant to support the pro-vaccination campaign in the mass media and measures to support the companied affected by the new coronavirus pandemic, according to the PM Citu. He explained that they would set up the state aid scheme aimed at providing financial support to the companies operating in the hospitality industry. Another draft emergency decree will extend the investments made under the National Development Program, Phase I, which is coming to an end at the end of 2020.
Eurostat — In 2019, households in the EU allotted, on average, 13% of their total consumption expenses on foodstuffs and non-alcoholic beverages, on top position of the classification being the Romanian households that allotted 26%, show data published on Monday by Eurostat. Other EU members that spend more on foodstuffs are Lithuania (20.2%) and Estonia (19.3%). Ireland, Luxemburg and Austria are the 3 EU members that spend less than 10% of their total consumption expenses on foodstuffs and non-alcoholic beverages. In the case of Romania, the share of expenses on foodstuffs and non-alcoholic beverages in the total consumption expenses dropped from 27.3% in 2009 to 26% in 2019. All in all, in 2019 EU households spent more than 956 billion Euros on foodstuffs and non-alcoholic beverages. (tr,. L. Simion)
