TALKS Romania’s Prime Minister designate and USR leader,
Dacian Ciolos, is waiting until Friday for an answer from his former ruling
partners PNL and UDMR in order to forge a new ruling coalition. Ciolos says that
he wishes what he describes as ‘a ballet of political entertainment in which
politicians are more important than the outcome’ to come to an end. On
Wednesday Ciolos had a first round of talks with PNL and UDMR representatives
with a view to building a government majority and the previous one made up of
PNL, USR and UDMR was dismantled after the USR had left the coalition and
endorsed a censure motion against the cabinet led by the Liberal Florin Citu.
If the three former ruling partners cannot reach an agreement, USR doesn’t rule
out the idea of a minority government made up of its own members.
COVID-19
According to the National Centre for the Supervision
and Control of Infectious Diseases in Bucharest, 94% of the deaths caused by
the coronavirus over October 4th and 10th consisted of
patients with related comorbidities while 73% of the confirmed cases and 91% of
the registered fatalities consisted of unvaccinated individuals. Authorities in
Romania on Wednesday announced over 15,700 new infections as well as 390
fatalities. At least 1670 people are in ICUs and the highest infection rates
have been reported by capital city Bucharest and Timis county, in western
Romania. Doctors in Romania have called on the population to get the vaccine
and observe prevention rules.
BUDGET The Executive in Bucharest has today approved a
bigger budget for the Health Ministry out of the budget reserves made available
to the government. Roughly 2 million Euros are to be spent for the purchase of
the Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis vaccine – DTPA included in the national
vaccination timetable. The government is also expected to endorse a measure on
using the state reserves to fit some anti-Covid vaccination centers with the
proper equipment. Also today the government has approved a memorandum over the
305 million funding contract between Romania and the European Investment Bank
for building a regional emergency hospital in Cluj, north-western Romania.
SPORT Romania’s handball champions, Dinamo Bucharest, will tonight be playing
FC Barcelona in the Champions League group B. This is a special game as
Dinamo’s headcoach Xavi Pascual had coached the Spanish side for 12 years.
Dinamo started off on the right foot with a win against Polish side Viva
Kielce, but lost to PSG of France and to FC Porto.
INVESTMENT Direct foreign investment
reached 4.4 billion Euros in the first 8 months this year as compared to 1.4
billion in the same period of 2020, a 197% increase, according to Romania’s
Central Bank. On the other hand, in the first eight months of the year, the
country’s foreign debt rose by more than 8.4 billion Euros exceeding 135.2
billion Euros. The number of newly-established companies with foreign capital
rose in the first eight months by 44% as compared to the similar period last
year, data released by the National Registry Office says. Most of these
enterprises are operating in the retail market, car and motorcycle service,
professional, administrative, technical and scientific activities as well as in
storage and transportation.
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