November 19, 2021 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 19.11.2021, 19:55

Politics.
President Klaus Iohannis has invited political parties for talks on Monday to
nominate a prime minister. The National Liberal Party, the Social Democratic
Party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania have agreed to
form a parliamentary majority and a new coalition government and their
representatives will see the president together. They held fresh talks on
Friday on the structure and content of the governing programme. Nicolae Ciucă,
the interim defence minister and who is the Liberals’ choice for prime
minister, said the talks on the social and political chapters were finalised,
and that the ministerial posts are now under discussion. The Social Democrats’
proposal for prime minister is their leader Marcel Ciolacu. The current political
crisis began after the incumbent prime minister and Liberal leader Florin Cîţu lost a no-confidence vote in
Parliament initiated by the Social Democratic Party and which also got the
votes of the Save Romania Union and the Alliance of the Union of Romanians. Two
previous attempts to form a government have failed.

COVID-19.
Romania reported almost 2,900 new Covid cases on Friday, as well as 281 related fatalities, 27 of them from an
earlier date. Intensive care units across the country remain overcrowded, in
spite of the drop in infection rates. In the capital Bucharest, the rate
reached 4.34 per thousand, having peaked at 16.54 per thousand on 22 October. The
National Committee for Emergency Situations said it agrees with the proposal of
the education ministry to allow all schools to reopen for in-person teaching in
places where the incidence rate is below 3 per thousand, regardless of the
vaccination rate among the school staff. The Committee also approved a slight
relaxation of restrictions on the organisation of large-scale events, with the
new measures to come into effect as they are adopted by the government.

Travel. The
National Committee for Emergency Situations updated the list of countries and
territories by latest COVID-19 incidence rates. Germany, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria,
the UK, Cyprus, Jordan and San Marino are now red-list countries, while France,
Portugal, Monaco, Chile, Lebanon and Guyana were moved to the yellow list. Thailand, Iran, Aruba and Saint Kitts and Nevisare
on the green list. The updated list comes into force on November 21, at
midnight.

Tennis. The Romanian
tennis player Horia Tecău announced on Thursday his retirement from professional
tennis at the age of 36. He won 38 doubles tournaments and was in 24 finals.
His biggest achievements are the Wimbledon and US Open titles, which he won together with Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands,
an Australian Open title in the mixed doubles together with Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the
US and the silver medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016, together
with another Romanian player Florin Mergea. He will play in one final event,
Romania’s Davis Cup matches against Peru on the 27th and 28th
November in Cluj Napoca. (CM)