February 3, 2022

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 03.02.2022, 13:50

Covid-19Ro. Romania registered, today, over 32 thousand new cases of infection with Sars-CoV-2 virus in 24 hours and 111 related deaths. The incidence of COVID cases in Bucharest today exceeded 24 per thousand inhabitants – the highest since the beginning of the pandemic. We recall that, on Tuesday, Romania exceeded the threshold of 40,000 new infections in 24 hours, out of 122 thousand tests performed. It is the absolute record since the beginning of the pandemic and more than double the peak of the previous wave.

Visit. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis receives today the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of the French Republic, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who is on a two-day visit to Bucharest. Yesterday, the official from Paris attended the solemn sitting of the Parliament dedicated to the 15th anniversary of Romanias accession to the European Union. He said that by joining the Union in 2007, Romania had regained its rightful place in the heart of Europe. The French Foreign Minister, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, called for solidarity and unity in the context of the health crisis and new threats to the security environment, but also for a solemn common commitment to upholding collective principles in Europe, such as official state sovereignty, the inviolability of borders, territorial integrity, the freedom of each state to decide on alliances and organizations to which it wishes to adhere, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. According to Le Drian, these principles are now threatened by the actions of the Russian Federation.

Meeting. The head of the Romanian diplomacy Bogdan Aurescu is, today, the host of a round of consultations on the security situation in the vicinity of Ukraine and in the Black Sea region of the foreign ministers of the states that are part of the Bucharest Format (B9). The hybrid meeting is also attended by the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, and the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. According to the MFA, security developments in the Eastern Neighborhood / Black Sea region will be assessed, with an impact on Euro-Atlantic security as a whole, of which Black Sea security is an integral part. Also, the participants will discuss measures to strengthen, in a uniform and coherent manner, the entire Eastern Flank, from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, by strengthening the Allied position of deterrence and defense, including following the recent announcement by France to contribute to this effort by increasing its military presence in Romania.

Corruption. On Thursday, the former mayor of Constanţa (the Black Sea port in south-eastern Romania) Radu Mazăre got a final sentence from the High Court of Cassation and Justice to five years in prison for bribery and influence peddling in the Polaris case. Initially, in March 2019, Mazăre received a sentence in the court of first instance of 9 years and 10 months in prison, a sentence reduced on appeal by the Supreme Court to 5 years, after the judges acquitted the former mayor for some of the offences. In the same case, businessman Sorin Gabriel Strutinsky was sentenced to 5 years in prison for accessory to bribe taking. The former Social Democrat MP Eduard Stelian Martin, the owner of Polaris, was also acquitted. He had previously received a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

Troops. The United States has announced that it will send nearly 3,000 additional troops to Romania, Poland and Germany to protect Eastern Europe from a potential escalation of the crisis triggered by the Russian troops deployed near Ukraine. One thousand of them will come to Romania. The Pentagon has said these will be temporary missions, aimed to strengthen the European allies defense against the background of the the tensions with Russia. Moscow has denied plans to invade Ukraine, but has said it is not willing to compromise and warns that it might take unspecified military action if its demands are not met. These include NATOs promise that Ukraine will never become a member of the alliance. (MI)