February 8, 2022
Click here for a roundup of local and world news
Newsroom, 08.02.2022, 13:55
COVID-19 36,269 new SARS-CoV-2 infections were
reported for the past 24 hours in Romania, along with 193 related fatalities,
the Strategic Communication Group announced on Tuesday. Since the start of the
pandemic 2 years ago, more than 2 million Romanians have had the disease and
over 60,000 died. Meanwhile, since the start of the vaccine roll-out in
December 2020, over 8 million people have received a full vaccination cycle,
and 2.4 million have also got the booster dose.
MOLDOVA
The number of supporters of
the R. of Moldova’s union with Romania is growing, according to an opinion poll
quoted by Radio Chişinău on Tuesday. Over 34%
of the respondents in Moldova would vote in favour of the union, says the poll
commissioned by IDIS Viitorul in Chișinău and the Institute of Political
Sciences and International Relations with the Romanian Academy. This is a
record-high number of union supporters, over 10 times higher than in 2010. According
to the same poll, which focused on citizens’ perception of the relations
between Moldova and Romania, over 62% of the people with dual citizenship would
vote for the union. However, in the case of new tensions similar to the one in
Ukraine, more people would back a military alliance with Russia (22.5%) than
with Romania (12.5%).
POLITICS The Prosecutor General’s Office announced on Tuesday that a criminal
investigation was initiated with respect to an incident in Parliament, where
the Romanian energy minister Virgil Popescu was assaulted by the co-president
of the nationalist opposition party AUR, George Simion. Popescu had previously filed
a criminal complaint against Simion. While attending a Chamber of Deputies
meeting on Monday, the Liberal minister Virgil Popescu was insulted and
assaulted by Simion. The meeting was suspended, and subsequently resumed with only
the opposition MPs from AUR and USR in attendance.
POLLUTION Romanian authorities have today launched 2 programmes, RABLA Clasic and
RABLA Plus 2022, with a combined budget of around 240 million euros. Under the
2 programmes, the Government provides subsidies for scrapping old and heavily
polluting motor vehicles. The same rules apply as in previous years, but
novelties have also been introduced. One of them is the option of using 2
vouchers obtained through scrapping used vehicles for the purchase of a hybrid
or electric vehicle.
UKRAINE The president of France Emmanuel Macron discussed with the Russian
leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday about the need for dialogue in the
context of the Ukraine standoff. At the end of the meeting, Emmanuel Macron said
all parties should behave responsibly in this crisis. He pleaded for
maintaining the current system of agreements concerning European security, and
suggested that a system of concrete security guarantees be put together for all
stakeholders. In turn, Putin said a number of ideas and proposals put forth by
the French president may pave the way for the de-escalation of the current
crisis over Ukraine. Vladimir Putin also added that Russia and France have
shared concerns regarding security in Europe. Today the French president meets
his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, in the first official
visit of a French president to that country in 24 years. Macron has repeatedly
discussed the need to deescalate tensions and to find diplomatic solutions to
the situation in the east of Europe, and emphasised that finding a political
way out of the standoff was his priority. Meanwhile in Washington, following
talks at the White House with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, US president
Joe Biden said diplomacy remains the best way to settle the Ukraine crisis. He warned
however that the US and NATO will be prepared in case Russia attacks Ukraine. (tr. A.M.P.)
