January 3, 2022

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 03.01.2022, 13:50

Covid-19Ro. 1756
cases of Covid-19 and 18 related deaths were reported in Romania in the last 24
hours. According to data provided by the National Institute of Statistics, the
infection rate in Romania in the last 14 days is 0.56 per one thousand
inhabitants and all counties are in the green scenario. However, over the last
week, the numbers have been growing, as compared to almost two months of
descending trend. Public health specialists and authorities are warning that
some 100 cases of infection with the Omicron variant have already been
confirmed across the country, and estimates show that it will become dominant
within the next two weeks. The bleakest of the wave 5 scenarios speaks of
around 25 thousand new cases per day in the peak period and a huge pressure on
the health-care system. The vaccination pace continues to be extremely low. In
Romania, a little over 7.8 million people have been fully vaccinated since the
start of the vaccination campaign.

Diaspora. Of all the
citizens of the 27 member states of the European Union, in 2020, Romanians in
the diaspora sent home the largest sums of money. According to Eurostat data,
the approximately 3.6 million Romanians living and working abroad officially
sent home about 3.4 billion euros, while the Spaniards sent 2.9 billion euros
and the Poles 2.8 billion euros, these being the states with the highest
revenues in remittances in 2020. According to Eurostat, at the level of the
entire European Union, the volume of remittances decreased by 9% in 2020
compared to 2019. In Romania the decrease was of only 7% as compared to 50% in
Hungary and 71% in Bulgaria.

Collective. The Bucharest
Court of Appeal might give today the final sentence in the
Collective case. The first instance court sentenced to many years
in prison those guilty of the tragedy of October 30, 2015, in Bucharest, in
which 65 people died and almost 200 were injured in the fire that broke out
during a concert in the Collective Club, caused by fireworks. On December 21,
the defendants’ lawyers requested milder sentences or even acquittal, claiming
that both the prosecutors and the magistrates of the Bucharest Tribunal hadn’t
ruled right. On the other hand, the prosecutors demanded maximum and
enforceable punishments for the former mayor of Bucharest’s District 4,
Cristian Popescu-Piedone, city hall officials, the club owners, two
firefighters, two pyrotechnicians and representatives of a fireworks company.
The trial is in the appeal phase, after, in December 2019, the Bucharest
Tribunal gave sentences ranging from 3.5 to 13 years in prison, as well as the
payment of damages of over 50 million lei (10 million euros).

School. In Romania, secondary
and high school students have resumed classes today, after a shorter winter
break than in other years, because of the vacation imposed by the authorities,
in autumn, during the wave of coronavirus infections. After two weeks of
school, the high school students will start the second semester right away, without
a vacation, the next one being scheduled only for Easter, in the middle of
April. Preschoolers and primary school children will resume classes in a week,
on January 10th.

Strasbourg. Romanian cases
pending before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) have dropped from
7,500 at the beginning of 2021 to less than 5,000. According to Judge Iulia
Motoc, if this pace continues, in 2022 we can hope that Romania will no longer
be the fourth country in terms of the number of ECHR cases. Most of the cases pending before the ECHR are
still about detention conditions, the ECHR judge Iulia Motoc has said.

Handball. Romania’s men’s
national handball team has gathered to train for the preliminary qualifying
tournament of the World Championship, on home turf in Cluj-Napoca (northwest).
Between January 7-9, 2022, the Romanians will take on the national teams of
Israel, Cyprus and the Republic of Moldova. Last week, Romania played, also in
Cluj, two training matches with the Turkish national team, and won both of
them. The friendly matches replaced in the program of the two teams a new
edition of the traditional Carpathian Trophy, which was canceled, as several
members of the Swiss and Iranian teams tested positive for Covid-19. The coach of the Romanian team is the famous Spanish Xavi Pasqual, who won the
Champions League with Barcelona three times. (MI)