January 10, 2023 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 10.01.2023, 20:10

VISIT Romanian
Defence Minister Angel Tîlvăr and Chief of Staff
General Daniel Petrescu are paying a formal visit to Poland. Bilateral meetings
with Defence Minister Mariusz Balszczak with representatives of the Chief of
Staff of the Polish Armed Forces as well as the Romanian anti-aircraft
detachment ‘Sky Guardians’ part of the NATO Group deployed to Bemowo Piskie
Training Area are high on the agenda. According to Defence Ministry sources,
the visit of the Romanian officials in Poland is proof of the excellent cooperation
relations between the two countries. On Monday, Tîlvăr and Petrescu met the Romanian soldiers deployed to the NATO base
in Pristina, Kosovo, who are participating in the NATO Kosovo Force – KFOR
mission. The officials in Bucharest held talks with KFOR commander the Italian major-general
Angelo Michele Ristuccia about regional security issues.

DECLARATION President Klaus Iohannis
has hailed the signing of the third Joint Declaration on EU-NATO cooperation
adding that Romania firmly supports the consolidation of security and
prosperity in the Euro-Atlantic zone. The document has been signed by NATO
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the presidents of the European Council,
Charles Michel and the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen at the
headquarters of the North Atlantic Alliance in Brussels. Romania will continue
to have a substantial contribution to the implementation of the new priorities
and action guidelines the joint declaration comprises, Foreign Minister Bogdan
Aurescu has said. According to a communiqué by the Romanian Foreign Ministry,
the NATO ministers meeting hosted by Bucharest in late November gave an impetus
to the process of signing the aforementioned joint declaration, prompting the
participants to voice support for deepening the EU-NATO cooperation. Romania
hails the message of unity and complementarity of the efforts the new
declaration promotes, the communiqué also says.

BANK Romania’s
Central Bank on Tuesday decided to raise the yearly key interest rate to 7%
from a previous 6.75% starting January 11 this year. This has been the highest
level of the key interest rate in the past 13 years and a higher key interest
rate also translates as higher installments for credits in the local currency.
Raising the key interest rate allows the Central Bank to keep inflation at bay
after a year with record-high price hikes.

COVID-19
The first cases of
infection with the new strain of the coronavirus, called Kraken, have been
confirmed in Romania. Experts say that, although the number of cases of
COVID-19 is on the rise again, there are no problems in their management,
including those that require hospitalization, and the new variants of
SARS-CoV-2 do not generate concerns about the severity of the disease. On the
other hand, there have also been cases of double infection, with flu and Covid,
and a 74-year-old woman diagnosed with ‘Flurona’, a term used by specialists to
describe simultaneous infection with the two viruses, has died.

(bill)