Romanian President Klaus Iohannis criticized the government’s inadequacy in handling the recent African swine fever outbreak in the country which already caused millions of euros in damages and has threatened thousands of jobs.
“The government is incapable of managing African swine fever which has very serious consequences for the Romanian economy,” Iohannis said.
Romania has a semi-presidential system with no actual executive powers but significant indirect influence on the governing of the country.
In the past few weeks, 780 separate cases of African swine fever outbreak have been reported in Hungary. Swine fever doesn’t affect humans but it can be deadly for domestic and wild boars, and cause massive losses for farmers.
The outbreak last week hit the country’s largest swine farm in south-eastern Brăila county, prompting the culling of 140,000 animals. In response to the outbreak, southern neighbor Bulgaria built a 133 km (83 miles) long razor wire fence in four weeks to prevent wild boar movement.
The swine fever first appeared last June in the north-eastern Satu Mare county bordering the Ukraine and Hungary and has resulted in the culling of 117,000 animals.
Hungary has ordered fences to be built around swine farms so wild boar cannot infect the animals.
