CORONAVIRUS IN ROMANIA – President Klaus Iohannis is today chairing a new meeting analyzing
\nmeasures to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, jointly with the Prime Minister and
\nGovernment members. The death toll in Romania has reached 157. According to the
\nlatest data centralized by the Group for Strategic Communication, the total
\nnumber of infections stands at 4,057 confirmed cases, of whom 406 people have
\nrecovered. Some 24,000 people are quarantined and another 106,000 are under
\nmedical monitoring in home isolation. 627 Romanian citizens abroad have tested
\npositive for COVID-19 and 29 have died.<\/p>\n
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CORONAVIRUS WORLDWIDE – Some 1,2 million people have contracted the coronavirus at global
\nlevel and 70,000 have died to the virus, France Press reports. Europe is facing
\nthe most difficulties at present, with Italy, Spain and France reporting half
\nof the total number of deaths at global level. In Italy the number of infected
\nis going down every day. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent in Rome,
\nthe authorities want to keep restrictions in place until May 9. In Spain too
\nthe number of deaths has been on the wane for the past four days, and the
\nsituation seems to improve in France as well, with the exception of Paris,
\nwhere the number of sick continues to rise. Some patients are being transferred
\nto other regions of the country as well as abroad. The United States is also
\nfacing serious problems, the local death toll standing at nearly 10,000. The
\nauthorities say the epidemic has not reached its peak and speak of a nationwide
\nimpact similar to the Pearl Harbor and 9\/11 attacks. <\/p>\n
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ADJUSTMENT – The Liberal Government is today analyzing
\nthe budget adjustment draft law, which is necessary to continue the fight
\nagainst the pandemic. Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said the Government session
\ntoday will also address a draft emergency decree under which bonuses will be
\npaid to medical and auxiliary staff treating the coronavirus sick. The bonuses
\nwill be paid using European funds, which will also be employed to purchase
\nmedical equipment and materials used to treat the sick. Under the same decree
\nthe state will be able to recover the money paid to companies whose employees
\nhave applied for technical unemployment benefits during the state of emergency.<\/p>\n
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AGRICULTURE – Two Romanian counties, Calarasi and
\nIalomita, both in southeast, are among the EU’s regions most specialized in
\nagriculture, a recent Eurostat report reads. Ileia on Greece’s western coast is
\nthe country with the highest agricultural activity in Europe, followed by
\nSilistra in northeastern Bulgaria. In 2017, Caralasi accounted for 20.4% of the
\nregion’s gross value added coming from agriculture.<\/p>\n
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CORONABONDS – EU Commissioner for the Internal
\nMarket, Thierry Breton of France and the EU Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni of Italy, have called on the
\n27 Member States to prove their solidarity by setting up a pan-European aid
\nprogramme capable of issuing long-term bonds in response to the coronavirus
\ncrisis. Their plea was published in an article released by Frankfurter
\nAllgemeine Zeitung and Le Monde. At the same time, the President of France’s
\nNational Assembly, Richard Ferrand and the President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang
\nSchauble, have pleaded for more financial solidarity and integration in Europe,
\nin a press article carried by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Le Figaro,
\nFrance Press reports. The two officials pointed out that all instruments at
\nEU’s disposal must be used to deal with the emergencies arisen and to convey a
\nmessage of solidarity across the EU. EU members have called on Germany and other
\nstates in northern Europe to back the so-called coronabonds, under which
\ncertain debt will be mutualized in order to deal with the effects of the
\nCOVID-19 pandemic. Germany, the Netherlands and other wealthy northern states
\nhave ruled out calls to create a common debt instrument. <\/p>\n
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(Translated
\nby V. Palcu)<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A roundup of domestic and international news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":75903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[29402,35374,34400,35457,35254,35456,29000],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-104255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-budget-adjustment","tag-covid-19","tag-eurostat-report","tag-financial-solidarity-in-the-eu","tag-liberal-government","tag-local-death-toll","tag-president-klaus-iohannis"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n