January 18, 2022 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 18.01.2022, 20:00
COVID-19 – The authorities on Tuesday announced 16,760 new COVID-19 infections, double the number reported on Monday, in addition to 70 related fatalities. Bucharest has reached an infection rate of 6.15 cases per thousand and is now in the so-called red zone with a high incidence rate. With 8 million people vaccinated so far, Romania ranks second at EU level after Bulgaria in terms of the lowest percentage of people vaccinated against COVID-19.
ENERGY – On February 1, the government in Bucharest is expected to endorse new measures aimed at capping electricity and gas prices. The aforementioned measures will be promoted through an emergency decree to be passed next week at the latest. Romanias Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă on Tuesday held talks with energy suppliers who, according to government sources, have agreed to newly announced measures for subsidizing and capping energy prices, pledging to write off and reissue the bills that have been wrongfully reported so far. The Prime Minister on Monday announced that following an agreement of the ruling coalition made up of PNL, PSD and UDMR, prices for gas and electricity would be capped and the consumption limit extended.
MOLDOVA – A Romanian-Moldovan joint government session will be held on February 12, 2022 in Chișinău, Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița has announced. In December last year, Prime Minister Gavrilița paid an official visit to Romania, meeting her Romanian counterpart, Nicolae Ciucă. The Republic of Moldova and Romania are consolidating their robust bilateral cooperation, the Romanian official said at the time, recalling that Romania is Moldovas top trade partner and insisting on the need for this country to improve its business sector so as to attract more Romanian investors. The interconnection of the two countries road infrastructure and reducing tariffs are high on the Romanian Governments agenda. According to Natalia Gavrilița, the absolute priority for Moldova is the interconnection of the two countries energy grids by 2024, which would consolidate the independence and security of the Republic of Moldova.
EU – Maltese center-right MEP Roberta Metsola was elected president of the European Parliament on Tuesday. Metsola, who won 458 votes out of the total of 616, had an absolute majority, avoiding the need for a second round of voting. A member of the European Peoples Party, Metsola succeeds Italian Social Democrat David Sassoli who died last week at the age of 65. Sassoli was a highly appreciated Italian politician and journalist, a supporter of the EU, who firmly campaigned for human rights observance around the world, Romanian MEP Eugen Tomac says. A vocal critic of the abuses committed by Russian president Vladimir Putin, in 2021 Sassoli was barred from entering Russia in response to the EU sanctions imposed to some Russian officials. Sassoli was also a supporter of the EU integration efforts of the Republic of Moldova.
NATO – NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, and Germanys Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on Tuesday ruled out a military response to a potential Russian aggression against Ukraine. It will mean high political costs for Russia should there be such an intervention and should the principle of sovereignty of states and the integrity of borders be violated, Chancellor Scholz argued. In turn, Jens Stoltenberg said NATO has also made it clear that Russia will pay a high political and financial cot should it choose the path of “violence”. The NATO official went on to say that, right now, there are certain NATO member states that have expressed their readiness to supply weapons to Ukraine, arguing however that the views on this matter vary across the NATO bloc. Although it has rallied a sizable military force on the Ukrainian border, Russia has denied allegations over its planned invasion. Last week, talks between Moscow and Washington over the future European security framework yielded no result, the Americans having dismissed Russias requests as unacceptable. Moscow has called on NATO to rule out any eastward enlargement, particularly in the case of Ukraine, to cease all cooperation with ex-Soviet countries and to cancel all maneuvers and troop deployments in Eastern Europe.
TENNIS – Tennis player Simona Halep has qualified to the second round at the Australian Open, after a straight-set win, 6-4, 6-3, against Magdalena Fręch of Poland. A former world no. 1, Halep took one hour and 29 minutes to defeat the Polish challenger. Five Romanian tennis players have so far advanced to the second round: Simona Halep, Sorana Cîrstea, Irina Begu, Gabriela Ruse and Jaqueline Cristian. The sixth Romanian player in the main draw, Irina Bara, was knocked out in the competitions opening round. (DB & VP)
