May 6, 2020 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 06.05.2020, 20:00
COVID-19 In Romania, the number of deaths caused by the novel coronavirus has reached 858. The number of confirmed cases exceeds 14,100. Some 5,800 people have recovered. Among the Romanians living abroad, more than 2,400 are confirmed to have caught the virus, most of them in Italy and Spain, while 96 have died, mostly in the UK. Meanwhile, Romanias Constitutional Court Wednesday ruled that the fines issued during the state of emergency for breaching the restrictions introduced over the COVID-19 pandemic are unconstitutional. The ruling concerns around 300,000 fines, totaling over 100 million euros. Prime minister Ludovic
Orban said he was shocked by the ruling, which, he said, was obviously
political in nature and was an invitation to breaking the law, a call for
anarchy. In
turn, Constitutional Court judges argue that the emergency order that regulated
the fines were lacking in clarity, precision and predictability, and issuing a
fine was left to the discretion of police officers.
ASSISTANCE The Romanian prime minister Ludovic Orban Wednesday attended the departure of a convoy of 20 trucks full of medical equipment as part of aid provided by Romania to the neighbouring Republic of Moldova, to help it fight the Covid-19 epidemic. Last week, the government in Bucharest decided to grant Moldova humanitarian aid worth 16.5 million lei in the form of medical equipment and medicines. Romania has also sent a team of 52 doctors and nurses who will be working in hospitals in Moldova treating patients infected with the novel coronavirus.
PENSIONS Cancelling the so-called special pensions is unconstitutional, Romanias Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday. The magistrates sustained the case filed by the High Court of Cassation and Justice and the Ombudsman against a bill passed by Parliament in January, which eliminated all special pensions except for those paid to Army and Interior Ministry staff, which are not calculated based on the contributions to pension funds. The ruling was based on procedural arguments, without discussing the contents of the bill.
PANDEMIC Europe must learn its lesson from the corona crisis, and secure its “strategic autonomy in key sectors like medical supply chains, which requires stocks and relocation of production, the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Wednesday. He emphasised that “It is not normal that Europe doesn’t produce a single gram of paracetamol, and 80 percent of the antibiotics production of the world is concentrated in China. At present 80% of the active substances used in pharmaceuticals come from third countries, with India and China alone accounting for 60%, according to a 2018 report by the French Senate. Confirmed coronavirus cases passed 3.7 million worldwide, with the death toll nearing 260,000, and 1.25 million people have recovered, according to measurements by ArcGIS and Worldometer. The United States is the worst hit country, with over 2,300 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to over 71,000, and the highest number of confirmed cases, at over 1.2 million. The UK, with over 29,000 deaths, is now the worst hit country in Europe, followed by Italy, Spain and France. Elsewhere, high schools in Hubei, the Chinese province that was the epicentre of the pandemic, Wednesday reopened for final-year students.
(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)
