5 March, 2020

A roundup of the main stories in Romania.

Newsroom, 05.03.2020, 13:55

Coronavirus. Six coronavirus cases have been
confirmed in Romania, with one patient being considered cured. Two cases
appeared on Wednesday: a 71-year-old man from north-eastern Romania who
returned from Italy last week, and a 16-year-old young man from Timisoara, in
the west, both of whom are in hospital. According to official data, 38 people
are in quarantine in Romania, and more than 11,300 are in isolation at home.
Two Romanian citizens infected with coronavirus and hospitalised in Japan have
been declared cured and will be released from hospital. Elsewhere in the world,
Britain has decided to amend the legislation to ease access to medical leave;
in France the outbreak has spread to all regions; and in Israel a quarantine is
imposed on all persons arriving from several west-European countries. While
Hungary has announced its first cases, in Italy, the country with the third
biggest outbreak after China and South Korea, all schools and universities have
been closed until 15th March. Schools have been closed in 13 states,
which affects over 290 million pupils.

Government. Government. Parliamentary
committees on Thursday gave a positive opinion to the nomination of Bogdan Aurescu
for finance minister, of Marcel Bolos for minister of European funds and of
Virgil Popescu for minister for the economy, who were proposed by prime
minister designate Florin Citu. The candidates for minister of transport,
infrastructure and communications, sports, defence, agriculture and the
environment have also received the green light, while the candidates for
minister of labour, health, education, culture, finance, development and
justice have received negative opinions. The opinions are consultative and the
vote of investiture is expected next week. The only change from the Orban
government is the position of finace minister, where Lucian Ovidiu
Heiuş is proposed to replace the former occupant, the prime minister designate.
Citu was nominated by president Klaua Iohannis after the Constitutional Court
ruled as unconstitutional the designation of the acting prime minister Ludovic
Orban, whose cabinet had been dismissed in a vote of no-confidence.

Visit. The European commissioner for innovation, research,
culture, education and youth Mariya Gabriel is today
making an official visit to Cluj Napoca, in the north-west. The commissioner is attending
the opening of the StartupCity Cluj-Napoca conference and
meeting representatives of European Capital of Youth network and the City
Science initiative, as well as mayors involved in the StartupCities
initiative. At the end of the visit, the
commissioner and the mayor of Cluj Napoca Emil Boc will have a dialogue with the
citizens on the subject Horizon Europe, challenges and prospects.

Poverty. In 2018, children were the age
group at highest risk of poverty and social exclusion in almost half of the EU member
states. The percentage varies from 13.1% in Slovenia and 13.2% in the Czech Republic to 38.1% in Romania and 33.7%
in Bulgaria, according to the data made public on Thursday by the European
statistical office Eurostat. The risk of poverty and social exclusion affected
23.4% of EU’s children 22.1% of its adults aged between 18 and 64 and
18.4% of people over the age of 65. The biggest gaps were noted in France,
Romania and Slovakia, where the rate among children was more than 5% higher
than the rest of the population.

Memorandum. Six EU member states, including Romania, signed in
Zagreb a memorandum of understanding on mutual assistance in the field of cyber
security, on the sidelines of an informal meeting of EU defence ministers. The project,
which is coordinated by Lithuania, aims at creating multinational response
networks and teams made up of EU cyber security experts. The other signatories
are Croatia, Poland, Estonia and Holland. In 2017, 25 EU member states joined
PESCO, an initiative allowing countries to cooperate more closely to
consolidate their military capacity, laying the foundations of the so-called
European defence union. This covers concrete projects, including the creation
of a medical union, a logistical centre and the development of joint standards
for military radio communication.