May 24, 2021 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 24.05.2021, 20:00

EU. Romania’s
president Klaus Iohannis is attending a special meeting of the European Council
held in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday. High on the agenda are the EU
coordination to tackle the Covid pandemic, fighting climate change, and the
EU’s relation with Russia and the UK. With regard to the pandemic, the Romanian
president stands for close coordination among member states and for the rapid
implementation of the digital green certificates at the EU level on condition
they do not hinder free movement. Regarding the climate change issue, Iohannis
is expected to plead for the setting up of a flexible legal framework to allow member
states to identify the best solutions for meeting the target of 55% cut in
greenhouse gases by 2030.

Belarus plane.
The Foreign Ministry in Bucharest has voiced deep concern regarding the
unacceptable decision by the authorities in Belarus to force a passenger plane
flying from Athens to Vilnius to land in Minsk. The Romanian Foreign Ministry
views the incident as very serious and calls for an independent international
investigation to determine the exact circumstances in which it occurred. The
Romanian authorities say they received no request for consular assistance from
a Romanian citizen in connection to this incident. Belarus and
Latvia on Monday expelled each other’s ambassadors and entire embassy staff.

COVID-19. The
number of new coronavirus cases is on a downward trend in Romania. Some 230 new
infections were recorded on Monday, the lowest number since the beginning of
June last year. 36 related fatalities were also reported, and 580 Covid
patients are still in intensive care. More and more hospitals around the
country have been reorganising their activity following the decreasing number
of Covid patients. The vaccine roll-out continues across the country. 7.3
million doses have been administered in this country to over 4 million people
since the start of mass vaccination in December last year, with almost 3.2
million people being fully vaccinated.

Schools. The
Romanian Education Minister Sorin Cimpeanu has announced the national exams are
to be held as scheduled and will be taken in person. There will be two sessions
hosting the National Evaluation Exam and the Baccalaureate. In August schools
will be able to stage more classes to catch up with lost learning. Teachers are
encouraged to stage summer camps and other activities in a bid to improve the
students’ education. We recall that last week all pupils in Bucharest and other
regions where the infection rate dropped under 1 per 1,000 inhabitants resumed
in-person learning, accounting for 93% of Romania’s 3 million pupils.

Hero.
In his opening remarks of the general assembly of the World Health
Organisation, the director of this organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
praised the sacrifice shown by the Romanian doctor Cătălin Denciu and said he
would be honoured with an award for his courage. 48-year-old Denciu was on duty
at a hospital in Piatra Neamţ, in north-eastern Romania, in November last year,
when a fire broke out. Ten patients were killed and Denciu suffered third
degree burns on 40% of his body trying to save others.

Economy. It’s a decisive week for Romania’s
national recovery and resilience plan before being submitted to the European
Commission and so that Romania could access the almost 30 billion euros worth
of development funds it is eligible for. The final version of the document,
including all implementation details, must be finalised by the end of the
month, but the main opposition party, the Social Democratic Party, insists the
government must present the plan in Parliament. Otherwise they threaten not to
vote for a European treaty that increases the spending of member states to the
EU budget and which needs to be voted by two thirds of Romanian MPs in order to
pass.

Middle East. US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken on Monday left Washington for a 4-day trip to Jerusalem,
Ramallah, Cairo and Amman. After Friday’s ceasefire between Israel and the
Islamist movement Hamas after ten days of bombardments and rockets being fired,
US president Joe Biden and secretary Blinken said the two-state solution is the
only possible solution. On the first leg of his tour, Blinken will meet Israeli
president Reuven Rivlin prime minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi. In Ramallah, in the West Bank,
Blinken will have talks with the president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud
Abbas and prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh. He will not meet, however, the Gaza
Strip leaders, because the US views Hamas as a terrorist organisation and does
not have direct contacts with its leaders. Blinken will next travel to Cairo
for talks with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and foreign minister
Sameh Shoukri, who were involved in the mediation that led to the ceasefire between
Israel and Hamas. On the last of his trip to the region, in Amman, Blinken will
be received by Jordanian king Abdullah II and his counterpart Ayman Safadi,
with Jordan being, together with Egypt, one of the few Arab states to have
long-standing diplomatic relations with Israel. (CM)