Radio România Internațional

Tag: Hungarian minority

  • March 15, 2021

    March 15, 2021

    COVID-19 IN
    ROMANIA – The capital city Bucharest and Braşov, Cluj, Hunedoara, Ilfov, Sălaj and Timiş counties have
    entered the red zone, the infection rate having exceed 3 per thousand
    inhabitants in these areas. On Sunday another 4,400 new infections were announced,
    by nearly 1,000 more than the previous week. The total number of infections
    stands at some 859 thousand, with the death toll closing in on 21,500. Over
    1,200 people are in intensive care. Prime Minister Florin Cîţu has called for
    identifying new hospitals to join the fight against COVID-19, by increasing the
    number of ICU beds to 1,600 and ensuring the necessary supply of medicines and
    continuing vaccination. We recall the state of alert has been extended for another
    30 days. All restrictions imposed so far remain in place, with the
    exception of the nighttime curfew, which now begins at 10 PM and ends at 5 AM.




    COVID-19 IN THE WORLD – The Netherlands has suspended the use
    of the AstraZeneca anti-COVID vaccine
    as a precaution after possible side effects were reported in Denmark and
    Norway, without a confirmed connection being established so far. Several other
    European countries suspended their AstraZeneca vaccine rollouts after people
    who took the vaccine developed blood clots. AstraZeneca announced it concluded
    an analysis of the anti-COVID vaccination process and found no risk of blood
    clots in people who were immunized with its vaccine. The number of blood clots
    developed in people who took the vaccine is inferior to estimates, the
    pharmaceutical company announced. The European Medicines Agency announced the vaccine’s
    benefits continue to outweigh its risks and the vaccine can continue to be
    administered while investigation of cases of thromboembolic events is ongoing.
    On the other hand, large areas of Italy today enter a three-week lockdown in an
    attempt to slow down the spread of the virus. People coming in and out of this
    country need to provide PCR negative tests for COVID-19. Israel, on the other
    hand, continues to ease restrictions.




    VACCINATION
    – The vaccination campaign in Romania today entered its third stage addressing
    the general population. For the time being the immunization process is carried
    out in towns and villages where the COVID infection rate exceeds 4.5 per thousand
    inhabitants. People can register on waiting lists on the online platform. Meanwhile
    people who enrolled in the second phase continue to get their shots. So far
    over 2.2 million people have taken one of the three vaccines rolled out in
    Romania – Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca.




    MESSAGE – Romania’s
    president, Klaus Iohannis, today conveyed a message marking the Day of
    Hungarians Worldwide. In his message, the president said that fostering
    interethnic harmony will help consolidate a stronger and more prosperous
    society. The head of state referred to the significant contribution of the
    Hungarian minority in Romania and its political representatives to Romania’s
    efforts towards European integration, promoting democratic values, human rights
    and the protection of minorities as underlying elements of Romanian society. These
    are the foundations of our common path towards a European future that shows a
    deep understanding of the mistakes of the past, president Iohannis said in his
    message.




    FIRE – A
    fire broke out today at the Psychiatry Hospital in Cavnic, northwestern
    Romania. 71 people were evacuated after a fire broke out in a bathroom on the
    third floor. The fire was extinguished without any victims being reported.
    After ventilating all wards, patients were returned to the hospital. This is
    the latest in a number of fires that recently broke out in hospitals in
    Romania. On January 29, five people were killed after four wards burned down at
    the Matei Balş Infectious
    Disease hospital in Bucharest. Also in January, a fire broke out at the
    Psychiatry Hospital in Gătaia, western Romania, and at a hospital in Roman. On
    December 25, 2020, a paitent died in another fire at the Socola Psychiatry
    Hospital in Iaşi, northeastern Romania. The most serious such incident remains
    the fire of November, 2020 at the Piatra Neamţ county hospital, which killed 10
    people.






    ENERGY -
    Romania’s Energy Minister, Virgil Popescu, is starting today on a two-day visit
    to Brussels, where he will try to persuade EU officials to approve the €1.33
    billion restructuring plan for the Oltenia Energy Company. Oltenia needs a
    total of €3.5 billion to cover restructuring costs over the next 5 years, of
    which €1.5 billion is provided by the Company, and the rest by the state. In
    February, the European Commission announced the launch of a comprehensive
    investigation of the state funding allotted to restructure the company,
    claiming the company’s energy output won’t change significantly after its
    reorganization. Romanian authorities hope to obtain the approval of the
    European Commission by the end of April, so that the Oltenia Energy Company
    should be able to pay CO2 permits for 2020 penalty-free.




    HANDBALL
    – The Romanian men’s national handball team surprisingly lost 30-25 to Kosovo
    on Sunday in a match counting towards Group 8 in the second phase of the 2022
    European Championship preliminaries. After it drew against Kosovo away from
    home a few days before, Romania was humiliated in Bucharest. Sweden is top of
    the group tables with 6 points in 3 games, followed by Romania with 3 points in
    4 games, Kosovo with 3 points in 4 games and Montenegro with 2 points in 3
    games. Romania’s next fixtures will be against Sweden on April 28 in Sibiu and
    against Montenegro on May 2 in Podgorica. Romania last qualified to a European
    Championship in 1996, in Spain, where it ranked 9th. (V.P.)

  • July 18, 2017

    July 18, 2017

    PRESIDENCY — Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has today said he favors administrative decentralization but he opposes autonomy on ethnic criteria that would hinder development. During his visit to the counties of Harghita and Covasna, in central Romania, the only Romanian counties with a majority Hungarian population, President Iohannis has said he is concerned about the future of the young people there, who do not speak Romanian and who thus have fewer opportunities on the labor market. Iohannis has also said that intolerance and the rejection of people with a different ethnic origin, by either a minority or a majority group, trigger a blockage of the country as a whole. He has also said that, in spite of the fact that they have a tourist potential, the counties of Harghita and Covasna hardly attract any investors. The Hungarian community in Romania, made up of around 1.5 million members, is concentrated in Transylvania, in central Romania. This community has been represented in Romania’s Parliament uninterruptedly, since 1990, by the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) which has been part of many coalition governments in Bucharest.




    BRUSSELS – Four months after the European Commission presented its White Paper on the Future of Europe, the debate on the future of Europe is picking up speed with potentially over 30 million citizens reached so far, the European Commission has announced today. The Commission offered five scenarios for how the EU could develop in the next decade. A broad debate has since been taking place, supported by political institutions and by civil society at large. To date, over 270,000 citizens have attended over 1,750 events organised or supported by the Commission with many more participating online (see figures here). Citizens are invited to continue to express their views, notably prior to the annual State of the European Union speech on 13 September 2017, when President Juncker will outline his vision for the future of Europe.




    PROJECT – Romanian Prime Minister Mihai Tudose has proposed his Bulgarian counterpart, Boiko Borisov to connect Bucharest to Sofia and Athens though a fast railway line. The two PMs have also discussed over the phone about speeding up projects for the construction of two new bridges over the Danube. Tudose and Borisov have agreed to hold a joint meeting of the Romanian and Bulgarian governments in September, when the details of a Romania, Bulgaria, Greece trilateral are to be set.




    EXERCISE — Saber Guardian 2017, one of the largest and most complex NATO exercises in recent years continues in Romania. From Cincu, in the centre, to Mihail Kogalniceanu, in the south-east, many military bases in Romania are playing host to the military exercise this month. The exercise involves more than 25,000 service members and 2,000 technical resources from over 20 allied states. The military will train in the fast movement of combat equipment, tanks and armoured vehicles backed by air forces, combat shooting, crossing water courses, medical evacuation and the treatment of the wounded.




    RATING – Fitch Ratings has improved Romania’s economic growth outlook for 2017 from 4.8% to 5.1%. The Agency forecasts that Romania’s budget deficit this year will reach 3.7% of the GDP, which is more than the Romanian government’s estimation of 2.9% of the GDP. The structural deficit is expected to reach 3.9% of the GDP, the current account deficit 3.1% of the GDP and the public debt 39.9% of the GDP, Fitch agency has also announced. The Romanian government’s projection for 2017 is 5.2% economic growth while the European Commission has put it at only 4.4%.


    (Translated by Elena Enache)


  • On Autonomy, Again

    On Autonomy, Again

    From Spain’s Catalonia and Basque Country to Belgium’s Flanders, secessionist movements hoping for the Scots to create a precedent within the EU were disappointed with the outcome of the independence referendum.



    Romania itself is facing a trend that targets the autonomy of the so-called Szecklers’ Country, where ethnic Hungarians make up the majority. So far, its autonomy and ultimately its independence was explicitly promoted by what the media in Bucharest called the Hungarian hardliners, affiliated to parties outside the Romanian Parliament. But now they are joined by the moderate Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, which has been a constant presence in the Parliament of Romania since 1990 and in most Romanian governments since 1996. Kelemen Hunor, head of this party and the vice-premier of Romania, presented the main elements of this new project.



    Comprising the current counties of Harghita, Covasna and Mures, the planned autonomous entity would enjoy rights similar to those of South Tyrol. Such an entity, called the Autonomous Hungarian Region, did exist in the history of Romania, inspired not by the Tyrol model, but rather imposed by the Soviet regime in the first two decades of communist dictatorship in Romania.



    The new model involves the introduction of bilingualism at all levels of social life, with Hungarian taught even in the Romanian schools in that region. The two ethnic communities would enjoy proportional representation in public institutions, meaning one-third of civil servants, magistrates included, would be Romanian and two-thirds Hungarian. Fifty percent of the taxes would stay with the local authorities instead of going to the state budget. The capital of the Szecklers’ Country would be the largest city in the region, namely Targu Mures, which in fact has a Romanian, not Hungarian majority.



    As deputy PM Kelemen Hunor put it, the Hungarian community seeks neither separatism, nor independence, but strong guarantees that its own identity would be protected, developed and freely expressed. The Romanian politicians, both in Power and Opposition, argue however that any territorial and administrative change must comply with the Constitution, and disagree with the creation of regions based on ethnic criteria.