May 6, 2021 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 06.05.2021, 20:00

Vaccination. President Klaus
Iohannis said Romania’s vaccination campaign is going extraordinarily well.
He recalled that from Friday, those who wish to get the vaccine will be able to
do so without an appointment. He said that although there are fewer and fewer
infections and ICU admissions and fewer deaths every day, the pandemic is not
over and called on the population to get the vaccine. To date, more than 2
million Romanians are fully vaccinated and on Thursday it was for the first
time that Romania saw more than 100,000 jabs administered in the space of 24
hours. 1,632 new Covid cases and 94 new related fatalities were recorded on
Thursday. The death toll now passes 28,700. More than 7,300 people are
receiving hospital treatment, while some 1,100 are in intensive care.

Migrants. Some 50 migrants were
caught in the last 24 hours by the Romanian border police as they were trying
to cross the border illegally into Hungary. The 44 foreign nationals, 28 men,
14 women and 2 children, originating from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, were
found hidden in the trailers of two trucks driven by Turkish nationals
travelling to Poland. Five other persons were found in a field some 100 metres
of the border with Hungary travelling on foot. Aged between 30 and 44, they
came from Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. All were detained by the border police.

Debt. Romania’s long-term foreign
debt stood at 90.947 billion euros at the end of February this year, 2% lower
than at the end of last year, according to data published by the central bank
in Bucharest. Direct public debt amounts to some 56 billion euros from over 57
at the end of 2020. The guaranteed public debt stood at 212.7 million euros, of
which 102 million to multilateral institutions. Private debt stood at 33.458
billion euros. Long-term deposits for non-residents amounted to 105 million
euros. According to the National Bank of Romania, the short-term public debt
amounted to 32.668 billion euros at the end of February this year, from 33.1
billion at the end of 2020.

Defence. EU
defence ministers on Thursday approved the participation of the NATO members
United States, Canada and Norway in a joint project aiming to help speed up
troops movement across Europe. NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg welcomed
the decision, underlining that non-EU allies play an essential role in protecting
and defending Europe. The project on military mobility is meant to facilitate the
movement of troops across Europe, actions viewed by NATO as crucial in the
event of a conflict with Russia, France Presse news agency notes. The meeting
of EU defence ministers was also attended by the Romanian defence minister
Nicolae Ciucă.

Tennis. The
Romanian-German pair Horia Tecău and Kevin Krawietz lost to fourth seeds Ivan
Dodig of Croatia and Filip Polasek of Slovakia in the round of last 16 of the
Madrid tennis tournament, worth 2.6 million dollars in prize money. Earlier, Tecău
and Krawietz had defeated the Finnish-French pair Henri Kontinen and Edouard
Roger-Vasselin. Tecău has two doubles titles in Madrid, in 2016 and 2019, when
he paired with Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands. (CM)