December 5, 2020 UPDATE

A news update

Newsroom, 05.12.2020, 19:31

Elections – Over 18 million voters are expected to the polls on Sunday in the more than 18 thousand stations organized in Romania to elect the members of the future parliament. The Romanians abroad will vote for 2 days. The first polling stations from abroad opened on Saturday evening in New Zealand and Australia, and the last ones will close on Monday morning on the western coasts of the US and Canada. Over 740 thousand Romanians with a right to vote reside abroad. Of them, more than 39 thousand have registered for postal voting. The Romanian Foreign Ministry opened 748 polling stations abroad, and launched an interactive map of all polling stations and a hotline for Romanian voters living abroad. A number of localities are in lockdown, but the authorities said voters can travel freely to the polling stations within these localities. Romanians will elect 136 senators and 329 deputies, and also 4 deputies and 2 senators representing the Romanian community abroad. The members of the future parliament are elected on party lists, according to the proportional representation principle.

Covid-19 Romania — 8,072 new coronavirus cases have been reported in Romania in the past 24 hours following the testing of 32,441 people across Romania, the Strategic Communication Group announced on Saturday afternoon. In the same interval, 134 people have died from COVID-19, taking the total death toll to 12,186. 12,472 patients are in hospital, of whom a record number of 1,280 are in ICUs. Across Romania, 44,941 people confirmed with the new coronavirus are in self-isolation and 11,979 in institutionalized isolation. Since the onset of the pandemic, 508,345 cases of contamination have been reported across Romania, and 399,207 people have recovered. 6,914 Romanian citizens from abroad have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 and 127 have died from the disease.

Rating — Standard & Poors has announced it maintains Romania’s country rating at BBB-, the latest rating recommended to investors. Although it expects a 4% growth of the GDP in 2021, the agency estimates that the economy will recover to the level of 2019 only in 2022. The Standard & Poors experts’ estimates show that in 2020 Romania’s economy will contract by 5% and the budget deficit will reach more than 9% of the GDP. According to the agency’s report, the negative outlook is given by the risks to Romania’s fiscal and external balances in the next 12 months. The agency expects the inflation rate to remain stable and the pressure on the currency exchange rate to be controlled by the measures of the National Bank of Romania in 2021. According to Standard & Poors the challenges for the future administration will be the continuation of comprehensive fiscal support for economic recovery and the managing of fiscal rigidities created by the rise in pensions and other social benefits.

Handball — Romania qualified to the main groups of the Women’s European Handball Championship hosted by Denmark after defeating Poland 28 to 24, on Saturday, in Kolding, in Group D. Thursday, in the first matches, the Romanians were defeated by Germany 19-22 and Poland lost to Norway. On Monday, in the last match, Romania will take on Norway. The three best-ranked teams will go to the next stage.

Commemoration — A religious service was held on Saturday, in the open air, at the Săvârşin castle (in the west of Romania), three years after the death of King Mihai 1 of Romania. The Royal Family said they would have liked to commemorate the King at his tomb, in the royal necropolis in Curtea de Arges (in the south) but given the pandemic, the ceremonies have been cancelled. King Mihai 1 died on December 5, 2017 at the age of 96. He was the last of the 4 kings from the German dynasty Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen instated at the throne of Romania in 1866 that built modern Romania. Mihai became King in 1940 after the abdication of his father, Carol II. On August 23, 1944, during WWII, he ordered the arrest of the de facto leader of the country, Marshal Ion Antonescu, Romania’s withdrawal from its alliance with Nazi Germany to rejoin its traditional allies, the US and Great Britain. According to historians, this decision shortened the war by at least 6 months and saved hundreds of thousands of human lives. Three years later, when the country was practically under Soviet military occupation and led by a Soviet puppet government, the King was forced to abdicate and go into exile in the west. (tr. L. Simion)