December 23, 2021 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 23.12.2021, 20:07
BUDGET Romania’s state budget for the next year was endorsed by
Parliament in Bucharest on Thursday. Most of the budgets earmarked for the
state’s major institutions and ministries remained in the form proposed by the
government. The national insurance budget was also endorsed on Thursday. The
opposition USR has announced its intention to notify the Constitutional Court
on the state budget, about which USR vice-president Dan Barna says it
discriminates against the Romanians and supports the present Parliament
majority. On Monday, the PSD-PNL-UDMR approved the drafts and gave assurances
they are based on predictability and stability. The budget is based on a 4.6%
economic growth, a GDP of 260 billion Euros, and an inflation rate of 6.5%.
EU FUNDING The government of Romania passed an
emergency order allowing for the accessing of a roughly 15-billion euro loan
granted by the European Commission under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism.
The loan agreement between the European Commission and Romania was signed in
Bucharest on 26th November and in Brussels on 15th
December. Under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Romania benefits
from some 29 billion euro, of which approx. 14 billion in non-reimbursable
funds and some 15 billion in loans. The loan will be available until the end of
2026. We have more on this after the news.
COVID-19 775 new SARS-CoV-2 infections have been reported in the past 24 hours in Romania,
along with 81 related fatalities, 44 of them from a previous date. Since the
start of the pandemic Romania has had around 1.8 million COVID-19 cases, and more than 58,000 patients
died. Amid anti-vaccine sentiments fuelled by
some media, politicians and opinion leaders, the country has the 2nd
lowest immunization rate in the EU, after Bulgaria.
REVOLUTION Romania’s Parliament convened on Thursday morning in a
solemn meeting devoted to the 32 years since the anti-communist revolution of
December 1989. Originating in Timișoara (west), on 16th December, the
uprising spread across the country, culminating with dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu
fleeing the capital city on 22nd December amid the protests of hundreds of
thousands of Romanians. Captured by the Army, Ceauşescu and his wife Elena were
subject to a summary trial and executed in the southern town of Târgovişte.
Romania was the only country behind the Iron Curtain where the change of regime
was accompanied by bloodshed. Over 1,000 people were killed and some 3,000
wounded.
(bill)
