NATO Romania, as a NATO member country and strategic partner of the US, benefits from all the security guarantees that it needs, in the context of the most serious crisis since the fall of the Iron Curtain. The statement was made by Romania's president Klaus Iohannis on Friday, during a visit he made together with the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the Alliance's Deputy Secretary General, Mircea Geoana, at the military base in Mihail Kogalniceanu, south-eastern Romania. The officials met with military personnel from allied nations deployed to Romania. In his turn, Stoltenberg said the presence of NATO troops in Romania is important because it is a powerful demonstration of NATO unity. Around 1,000 American military were relocated to Romania, amid concerns raised by the Russian military build-up at the Ukrainian border. France has also voiced willingness to deploy troops to Romania. A NATO member since 2004, Romania was already hosting 900 American, 250 Polish and 140 Italian troops. A unit of the US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), comprising around 150 troops and 8 F-16 Fighting Falcons, will have joint training missions with troops and aircraft of the Romanian Air Forces for 2 weeks, as of Friday. According to a news release, the US aircraft will also conduct enhanced air policing missions, jointly with Romanian troops and with the Italian Air Forces unit deployed to Romania in December.
CORONAVIRUS The number of new Covid-19 infections continues to drop in Romania. On Friday, the Group for Strategic Communication announced 22,737 new cases and 132 deaths, five of which from an earlier date. The Romanian authorities consider easing the restrictions taken in the context of the pandemic, but in a gradual manner, as did the countries that have already overcome the peak of the current wave, the head of the Department for Emergencies, Raed Arafat, said. The number of new cases is dropping, and if we stay on this trend, we could be restriction free by Easter, Arafat said. In turn, the head of the immunization programme, Valeriu Gheorghita, said that in the future vaccination against Covid-19 will be seasonal, just like the flu vaccine, and adjusted to the strain in circulation at a particular moment. The vaccination rate among adults stands at 50.5% in Romania at present, Valeriu Gheorghita said.
MOLDOVA A number of bilateral documents were signed in Chisinau on Friday after a joint meeting of the Romanian and Moldovan governments, including an inter-government agreement under which Romania is to provide EUR 100 million worth of non-reimbursable aid. The Romanian PM Nicolae Ciucă and his Moldovan counterpart Natalia Gavriliţa also signed a joint statement on strengthening cooperation in economy and investments. Other agreements concern the building, maintenance, repair and use of a cross-border bridge in Ungheni, and roaming and international call tariffs, cooperation in energy security, digitisation, research and innovation and defence, justice and home affairs. The Romanian PM emphasised that this is the most substantial openness ever seen in bilateral relations, and promised that Romania will remain a determined and vocal supporter of the Republic of Moldova's EU accession efforts. In turn, Moldova's PM Natalia Gavriliţa said her Cabinet has undertaken to provide a predictable and attractive environment for investments in the country, in line with European best practices.Nicolae Ciucă was received by the president of Moldova, Maia Sandu, to whom he conveyed Romania's full support for the reforms she initiated in the judicial field in particular.
TENNIS The Romanian tennis player Irina Begu (56 WTA) Friday defeated Tereza Martincova (42 WTA) of the Czech Republic, 6-4, 6-2, and qualified into the semis of the Sankt Petersburg tournament. Martincova had won (6-7, 6-4, 6-4) her only previous match against Begu, in Tashkent in 2019. (A.M.P.)