June 29, 2021 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 29.06.2021, 19:00

Motion. The two-chamber Parliament
in Bucharest on Tuesday evening rejected a no-confidence motion initiated by the
Social Democratic Party in opposition against the ruling coalition formed by
the National Liberal Party, the Save Romania Union-PLUS Alliance and the
Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania. 202 MPs voted on the motion,
of whom 201 in favour and 1 against, but 234 votes were needed for the motion
to pass, namely half plus one of all senators and deputies. More on this latest
development later in the newsreel.

Ombudsman. Renate
Weber will resume her post as Ombudsman after the Constitutional Court accepted
a complaint from the Social Democratic opposition and unanimously ruled that
her dismissal by the parliamentary majority is unconstitutional. The Court
issued a statement saying Weber will go back to her job as soon as the Court’s
ruling is published in the Official Gazette. The Court explained that her
dismissal is in breach of the rule of law and the principle of the legality and
supremacy of the Constitution and of certain provisions of the law regulating
the institution of Ombudsman. When they dismissed her, the MPs from the
parliamentary majority accused Weber of violating the Constitution and acting
more like an advocate for the Social Democratic Party. In response, the
opposition said her sacking was a form of public execution.

Recovery. Austerity did not lead to
better results after the economic crisis of 2008 and neither is it a solution
to overcome the current challenges generated by the pandemic, said president
Klaus Iohannis after meeting EU ambassadors accredited to Bucharest on Tuesday.
We will overcome this crisis by spending money, by investing it in
infrastructure, in the real economy, the president also said. He expressed
confidence that after the summer holidays, Romania will receive a positive
reply from the European Commission with respect to its National Recovery and
Resilience Plan.

Forecast. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has raised
its forecast for Romania’s economic growth in 2021 to 6% from 3% in its
previous estimate from last September, the bank says in a report published on Tuesday.
It also says Romania weathered the Covid-19 crisis better than initially expected,
with the GDP falling by 3.9% in 2020. Overall, private consumption saw the
steepest drop in 2020, at 4.9%, while resilient investments and improved net
exports had a positive contribution to growth. In the last two quarters, the
economy grew at a robust pace, as containment measures had limited impact on
economic activity, the bank also notes. It estimates that the Recovery and
Resilience Facility will give a significant impetus to investments in 2022,
while private consumption and higher net exports are expected to fuel an economic
growth rate of 5%.

Pogrom. Romanian
Parliament will meet in a special session on Wednesday to commemorate the
victims of the Pogrom of June 28-30 1941, in Iaşi, in north-eastern Romania,
when over 13 thousand Romanian Jews were killed. In a statement issued on Tuesday, Romanian president Klaus Iohannis
said that hatred, violence and contempt for human dignity were but some of the
instruments used by the pro-Nazi authorities of the day to carry out a
diabolical plan, namely cleansing Iaşi of its Jewish population. The city’s
Jews were forcefully removed from their homes, separated from their loved ones,
savagely abused and then carted off on death trains or killed by machine guns. The
Romanian president said remembering the suffering of those days and
commemorating the victims is the only form of moral retribution today’s and
tomorrow’s generations must pay to the victims of those events. The Romanian
president warned that rising denialism, hate speech, the attempts to distort history,
populism and anti-Semitism are ever more present in the public realm and they take dangerous roots
on the fertile ground of ignorance.

Pandemic. The
Romanian authorities are making the final preparations for the introduction on
July 1st of the Green COVID-19 Certificate, which is to facilitate travel between
EU countries during the pandemic. Those who wish to travel to other EU countries
can download this document on the first day of July. In the meantime, the
Romanian authorities are looking for new ways to step up the vaccine rollout,
including a mobile team to bring the vaccine to the country’s rural areas. 73
new infections were announced on Tuesday and 500 infected patients are being
treated in hospitals around the country, including 80 in intensive care. (CM)