October 8, 2020 UPDATE

A news update

Newsroom, 08.10.2020, 19:53

Covid – 19 — The Romanian PM Ludovic Orban on Thursday called on the health minister Nelu Tataru to increase the testing capacity for the new coronavirus as well as the number of beds in ICUs. The Strategic Communication Group announced on Thursday a new record of COVID-19 cases reported in the past 24 hours- 3,130 with 44 deaths reported in one single day. The total death toll stands at 5,247. Intensive care units have reported 607 patients. Since the beginning of the pandemic in late February over 145 thousand Romanians have been infected with the new coronavirus out of which over 113 thousand have recovered. The number of Romanians from abroad infected with the new coronavirus is 6,770, three new cases being recorded since the latest reporting, with the death toll standing at 126. In Bucharest and in other areas where the infection rate has exceeded 1.5 cases per thousand inhabitants certain activities have been suspended.

Bucharest Forum — The 9th edition of the Bucharest Forum, the most important political event in the Black Sea region and the Balkans debates, starting on Thursday, the issue of the resilience of financial systems, political institutions and systems and societies as a whole in the context of the deep changes generated by the COVID -19 pandemic at global level. This year’s edition of the Bucharest Forum unfolds online and will end on October 16. The event gathers more than 120 high-ranking officials, representatives of the business environment, of academia, prestigious experts and journalists from Europe, Asia and America. In a message addressed to the participants, the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said the COVID-19 pandemic represented for Romania ‘the most dramatic period after 1989’. The Romanian President pointed out that Romania would continue to adapt in order to implement the necessary measures aimed boosting the capacity to manage this crisis at medical and education system levels and also from the perspective of ensuring public services and increasing economic resilience. In turn, the PM Ludovic Orban said that Romania should strengthen its economy and instead of boosting consumption, it should attract investments and create new jobs. According to the PM, for Romania and equally for Europe, resilience to future vulnerabilities depends on diversifying the economy, rethinking supply chains, strengthening healthcare systems and decentralizing.

Visit – Two Romanian ministers have traveled to the US for talks with the local authorities. Romanias defense minister Nicolae Ciuca will be having talks with the US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper about the latest developments in the Black Sea region as well as about the need for coherent and consistent defense and deterrence measures on the NATO eastern flank. The Romanian Minister of the Economy, Energy and Business Environment, Virgil Popescu will be meeting the US Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette for talks on the development of the energy dimension of the Strategic Partnership between Bucharest and Washington and on a higher US involvement in this sector.

Nobel Prize — The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2020 is awarded to the American poet Louise Glück “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”, the Swedish Academy announced on Thursday. On Wednesday, the French researcher Emanuelle Charpentier and the American Jennifer A. Doudna received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Previously Roger Penrose (the UK), Reinhard Genzel (Germany) and Andrea Ghez (the US) won the Nobel Prize in Physics and the Americans Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice alongside the British Michael Houghton received the Nobel Prize in Medicine. The winners of the Nobel Prize for Peace and for economy will be announced on Friday and Monday respectively.

Bratislava — The Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu on Thursday participated in the online Global Security Forum GLOBSEC conference, held in Bratislava, Slovakia. According to a Romanian Foreign Ministry communiqué, Bogdan Aurescu talked about the global role of the EU following the COVID-19 pandemic. The Romanian FM underlined that the EU had to assume a responsible leadership role at international level, given its characteristics and foreign action ways. The EU has managed to adapt to the current pandemic-related crisis through complex measures with a major impact, even if it reacted slower at the beginning of the crisis, said minister Aurescu. He pleaded for consolidating the trans-Atlantic relation which is essential, since the EU and North America belong to the same community of values and security. The GLOBSEC forum is a global think-tank set up in Bratislava, aimed at debating and proposing solutions on issues of security and sustainable development in Europe and the world. The annual 2020 conference is being held between October 7th and 9th in mixed format (physical and online attendance). (update by L. Simion)