GOVERNMENT <\/b>The Standing Bureaus of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies decided that
\nthe proposed members of PM designate Dacian Ciolo\u015f’ cabinet will be interviewed
\non Tuesday by the relevant parliamentary committees. The vote on the
\ngovernmental team as a whole was scheduled for Wednesday. The Romanian prime minister
\ndesignate and leader of Save Romania Union (USR), Dacian Ciolo\u015f, Monday
\nsubmitted to Parliament the governing programme and the proposed membership of
\nhis one-party cabinet, as validated on Sunday by USR. The new Cabinet includes
\nUSR ministers from the former cabinet, as well as new names. Dacian Ciolo\u015f
\nchose the option of a minority, one-party government, after negotiations with
\nthe former partners, the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Democratic Union
\nof Ethnic Hungarians (UDMR), failed to lead to the restoration of the
\nright-wing coalition. The programme includes decisions related to rebalancing
\nenergy prices, handling the COVID pandemic and other specific issues, such as
\nthe dismantling of the Special Section for the Investigation of Crimes in the
\nJudiciary and scrapping special pensions. The Ciolo\u015f Government needs 234 votes
\nin Parliament, and the USR has 80 MPs. The former Liberal government led by
\nFlorin C\u00ee\u0163u was dismissed by a motion of no confidence filed by the
\nSocial-Democratic opposition and supported by USR and the nationalist party AUR.<\/p>\n
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COVID-19<\/b> The Romanian interim Interior Minister, Lucian Bode, has announced that
\n26 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 have been transferred to Hungary. One of
\nthem unfortunately died in the meantime. The Romanian official added that the
\nsituation these days is rather critical. Meanwhile, 32 medical staff from the
\nneighbouring Republic of Moldova came to Romania on Monday and will treat
\nCOVID-19 patients for 12 days, in a mobile hospital in the village of Le\u0163cani,
\nIa\u015fi County. Authorities in Bucharest announced on Monday more than 10,000 new
\nSARS-CoV-2 infections and 261 deaths. More than 1,700 patients are currently in
\nintensive care. Regarding vaccination, in Romania, the number of people that
\nwent through a full vaccination plan stands at roughly 5.7 million.<\/p>\n
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VACCINE <\/b>It could take Romania more than 7 months to get 40% of its
\npopulation vaccinated against COVID, and 31 months to reach a 70% rate, at the
\ncurrent vaccination pace, the World Health Organisation estimates. WHO
\nrepresentatives talked with Romanian authorities on Monday to identify the
\ncause of the failure of the country’s vaccination programme. Romanian officials
\ninformed the WHO experts of the steep rise in the number of severe cases and
\nCOVID-19 related deaths, and added that 92% of the fatalities were reported
\namong the unvaccinated. Meanwhile, the WHO said the proportion of fully
\nvaccinated people is significant in Romania, indicating that once they start
\nthe immunisation, Romanians go through with the required number of doses. The
\nWHO announced it would work with Bucharest to identify training and know-how
\nexchange opportunities with respect to vaccine safety and the development of a
\ncommunication strategy.<\/p>\n
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EU MEETINGS<\/b> The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, participated on Monday in a
\nvideoconference with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and
\nother European leaders, in preparation for the European Council meeting due on
\nOctober 21 – 22, the Presidential Administration has announced. The Romanian head of state emphasised the need to quickly identify
\nefficient short-term solutions, as the ongoing energy crisis will have
\nsubstantial effects on all EU member countries, with a deep social and economic
\nimpact. Klaus Iohannisalso
\nstressed the importance of diversifying energy supply sources and of reducing
\nreliance on third countries for energy supplies. The main topics on the agenda
\nof this week’s European Council meeting are the epidemiological and vaccine
\nsituation, the EU digital agenda, the increase in energy prices, migration, the
\nEuropean trade policy and the Union’s foreign relations.<\/p>\n
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PANDEMIC <\/b>Over one billion anti-COVID vaccines produced in
Click here for a roundup of local and world news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":105208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[32992,35374,35780,29286,34849,36415,35416,32402,33065],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-105435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-cabinet","tag-covid-19","tag-fatalities","tag-government","tag-interim","tag-members","tag-pandemic","tag-vaccine","tag-vote"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nthe EU have been exported to over 150 countries since December 2020, the
\npresident of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced on Monday. EU exports mainly went to
\nmajor economies like Japan, Turkey and the UK. Some of the vaccines were
\nexported or donated to poorer countries, and according to Ursula von der Leyen
\nthe EU plans to increase donations in the coming months and to send at least
\n500 million doses to vulnerable countries. Meanwhile, the European Centre for
\nDisease Prevention warns of the high risk of death among the unvaccinated
\npopulation as we move forward in the autumn and winter, urging countries to
\nspeed up efforts to convince those who have not been immunised.
\nAlthough at EU level the full vaccination rate is 74% of the adult population,
\nthe gaps between states are still large, ranging between 22% and 91%, with the
\nlowest rates of vaccinated population reported for Bulgaria and Romania, and
\nthe highest in Portugal and Ireland. Worldwide, so far, at least 241 million
\ncases of new coronavirus infection have been reported and more than 4.9 million
\npeople have died, according to wordlmeters.info. (tr. A.M. Popescu)<\/span><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"