A roundup of local and international news.
Budget. In Bucharest, the Liberal PM Florin Cîţu announced a first draft of the state budget adjustment bill is ready and will be forwarded soon to the leaders of the right-of-centre ruling coalition. The prime minister also said he was still waiting for all ministers to report on the budget execution for the first half of the year, and called for more responsibility in public spending in the next 6 months. In an internet post, Cîţu reminded his cabinet members that they must reach all the budget targets undertaken at the beginning of this year.
Attack. The European Union and NATO firmly condemned last Thursday's drone attack off the coast of Oman on an oil tanker managed by an Israeli billionaire in which two crew members were killed, one Romanian and one British national. NATO warned that freedom of navigation is essential for allies and must be respected in keeping with international law. According to the Alliance, the UK, the US and Romania reached the conclusion that Iran is most likely responsible for the attack, and the allies are worried about Tehran's destabilising actions in the region. Iran rejected the accusations and said it will not hesitate to defend its security and national interests. Israel described the incident as a clear violation of international law. In Bucharest, the foreign ministry also condemned the attack and summoned the Iranian ambassador in Bucharest. A similar measure was taken in London, where prime minister Boris Johnson said Iran must face up to the consequences. The government in Tehran summoned the chargé d'affaires of the British and Romanian embassies to protest against the accusations against Iran.
COVID-19. Tuesday saw 233 new Covid cases in Romania, the highest number in the last two months. Over 400 Covid patients are receiving hospital treatment, including 60 in intensive care. Five COVID-related deaths were also reported on Tuesday. The number of new coronavirus cases is growing across Europe, while in Romania containment measures are more relaxed than in other countries, state secretary Raed Arafat said. Despite this, he said, Romanians are still failing to observe the restrictions and many have given up wearing face masks on public transport. In spite of repeated warnings of an imminent new wave of infections, the vaccine rollout is also lagging behind in Romania, where 5 million people have received at least one dose, a target set for early June but which was only met a few days ago.
Vaccination. The European Union has reached a major goal of providing at least one dose of the Covid vaccine to 70% of the adults in the Union, but member states must step up vaccination rates in order to contain the faster-spreading variants, the European Commission chief warned on Tuesday. Ursula von der Leyen said that, apart from the first dose target being met, 57% of EU adults are now fully vaccinated against Covid. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 68% of the adults in the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland have received their first dose, whereas 53.7% of the approximately 400 million adults in the 31 countries are fully vaccinated.
Wildfires. Efforts are being ramped up to put out the wildfires raging in several Balkan countries. The fire is still blazing in many areas, owing to strong winds and high temperatures. Greece is faced with its highest temperatures in the last 30 years, with highs of 40 to 45 degrees Celsius. The Greek authorities took a series of measures to extinguish the wildfires and in Turkey, the fire fighting services, which have been struggling to contain the fire for almost a week, said there are still active fires. They received help from fire fighters from Spain, Croatia and Russia. The heat wave has also affected southern Bulgaria and Serbia, where hundreds of hectares of forest have caught fire. The authorities are on alert, given that high temperatures are also expected in the next few days.
Recovery. The European Commission has made the first payments under the European Recovery and Resilience Plan to Belgium, Luxembourg and Portugal, worth in total almost 3 billion euros. These are the first countries to receive 13% of the promised funds as part of a massive EU recovery scheme worth 800 billion euros and aimed at overcoming the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. The European Commission will this month make further payments to other countries as soon as the latter finalise their national plans. All states, with the exception of The Netherlands and Bulgaria have submitted their plans. The Commission has so far given the green light to 16 countries, namely Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Croatia, Cyprus, Lithuania and Slovenia. The plans submitted by 7 states, including Romania, are still under assessment.
Unemployment. The unemployment rate at the end of June in Romania was 3% lower than in the previous month and equal to that in June last year, according to the national employment agency. Some 260,000 Romanians were out of job at the end of June, a third of them from urban areas and the rest from the countryside.
Olympics. Bronze medallists at the Canoe Sprint European Championship in Poznan this year, the Romanian rowers Cătălin Chirilă and Victor Mihalachi on Tuesday finished in fifth place in the final of the men's canoe double 1,000 m at the Tokyo Olympics. Victor Mihalachi has two world championship titles in this event, which he won in 2010 and 2014. Also at the Tokyo Games, Romanian gymnast Larisa Iordache missed the beam final because of an ankle injury. Romania so far won four medals in Tokyo, including one gold and three silver. (CM)
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