November 14, 2021 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news.

Newsroom, 14.11.2021, 20:00

FOREIGN AFFAIRS — The head of Romanian diplomacy, Bogdan Aurescu, will participate on Monday in Brussels in a Foreign Affairs Council meeting, where EU foreign ministers will discuss topics such as Belarus, the West Balkans and the evolutions in the Sahel region, according to a Foreign Ministry release (MAE). The release also reads that as regards the situation in Belarus, Aurescu will voice Romania’s solidarity with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, the EU countries faced with a growing number of migrants at the border with Belarus, and will support the quick adoption of additional sanctions on the Minsk regime. The Romanian official will also present his country’s assessment of the security evolutions in the Eastern neighborhood, including in the Black Sea region. Aurescu will attend the Eastern Partnership’s ministerial meeting alongside foreign ministers from EU countries and counterparts from partner countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The Romanian official will express Bucharest’s support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and will encourage Kiev authorities to maintain a high pace of reforms in keeping with the obligations assumed under the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.

CORONAVIRUS — The number of new Covid infections is on the decrease in Romania. Little over 3,000 new infections in 24 hours were reported on Sunday as well as 233 related deaths, of which 10 previous to the above-mentioned interval. The infection rate at national level has dropped to 5.55 on Sunday. The number of Covid cases in 14 days exceeds 6 per one thousand inhabitants only in 8 counties and in Bucharest, standing at 6.26 in the capital city on Sunday. Children and students in almost 72% of the kindergartens and schools in Romania will attend classes in person as of Monday, after at least 60% of the staff in these education units has been vaccinated. All other schools will continue to hold classes online.

NEGOTIATIONS — Representatives of the National Liberal Party (PNL), in power, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) in opposition and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), a partner of the party in power, continued negotiations on Sunday to complete the joint governing programme. Progress was made on the Labour domain, Liberal leader Florin Citu announced. He also said that a social package, whose budgetary impact is to be calculated in the upcoming period, was also agreed on. In his turn, the Social Democrat leader Marcel Ciolacu said that pensions and child allowances will be raised as of January 1st, 2022. The chapters that remain to be discussed by the parties are Justice and Finance. The three parties also have to decide on the government makeup and the prime minister. According to Marcel Ciolacu, PSD, PNL and UDMR together will propose two candidates for the prime minister post to President Klaus Iohannis, who has the constitutional right to nominate the head of the government.

NATO – The Unites States will continue to stand with friends and allies at the Black Sea to enhance deterrence and make sure that actions such as those Russia conducted over recent years in the region do not go any further, US Embassy Charge d’Affaires and interim US Ambassador to Bucharest, David Muniz said in an interview with Agerpres on Saturday. The American official on Friday was on board the United States Sixth Fleets flagship USS Mount Whitney in the Black Sea port of Constanta, for a military exercise alongside NATO allies. Seven military ships of the Romanian, American, Turkish and Ukrainian armies held joint military drills on Friday in the Black Sea waters. In reaction to this, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview on Saturday that the NATO drills were unplanned and were a provocation to Russia.

CLIMATE – The UN conference on climate change, COP 26, held in Glasgow, Scotland, ended after two weeks of intense negotiations, with an agreement that aims to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, and thus maintain a realistic chance of saving the world from catastrophic climate change, Reuters reports. European Commission Vice-President, Frans Timmermans, said that the agreement represents a historic commitment. In order to deliver on these promises, COP26 also agreed for the first time to accelerate efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, and recognised the need for support towards a just transition. (EE)