Radio România Internațional

Tag: citizens

  • The election period begins in Romania

    The election period begins in Romania

    The election period for the presidential elections in Romania begins this week, according to the calendar approved by the Bucharest Government. On September 12, the five judges with the High Court of Cassation and Justice, who will be part of the Central Election Bureau (BEC) for the presidential elections, will be elected by secret ballot. A day later, the president of the BEC will be appointed, as well as the members of the political formations that are not represented in Parliament and that proposed presidential candidates. Also, on September 14 at the latest, the Central Election Bureau will be completed with the president and vice-presidents of the Permanent Election Authority and with one representative of each parliamentary political party.

     

    September 24 is the date by which Romanian citizens domiciled or residing abroad can submit requests to vote by mail. The calendar also provides that, by September 28, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be informed about the localities abroad where polling stations must be established, as well as their number. No later than October 5th, the presidential candidacies will be submitted.

     

    It is expected that the current Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, from the Social Democrats, the current Speaker of the Senate, Nicolae Ciucă, from the Liberals and the President of the Save Romania Union, Elena Lasconi, will enter the election race for the most important position in the Romanian state. The head of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, George Simion, the leader of the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, Kelemen Hunor, as well as several representatives of non-parliamentary parties and independent candidates, among whom stands out the former NATO Deputy Secretary General, Mircea Geoană, who ended his mandate on Tuesday, are also expected to run for president.

     

    Until October 10, the process of establishing the candidacies takes place, and until October 12, the order of the candidates’ names on the ballot will be established. The election campaign will start in Romania on October 25. The voting process in the first round of the presidential elections will start abroad on November 22. Romanians in the Diaspora will vote until November 24, when citizens with the domicile or residence in the country will be asked to cast their ballot.

     

    By November 29, the names of the two candidates who will participate in the second round of voting will be announced, and on the same day the election campaign will start again. The second round of the elections for the president of Romania will start abroad on December 6 and, just like in the first round, Romanians abroad will have 3 days to express their political option. In the country, Romanians will go to the polls on December 8th. According to the Permanent Election Authority, the total number of citizens entitled to vote, registered in the Election Register at the end of August, was almost 19 million, of which about 960,000 had their domicile or residence abroad.

     

  • November 10, 2023

    November 10, 2023

    JUDGE Through
    a UN vote, Romania’s former Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu has become one of the
    judges of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. It is for the first
    time a Romanian has obtained such a position and for the first time when no
    Russian candidate has been elected. The UN success reflects Romania’s firm
    commitment for the international rule-based order, Romanian president Klaus
    Iohannis says. According to the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest, Aurescu’s new
    position is a victory of the Romanian diplomacy as well as the recognition of
    his professionalism and expertise. Aurescu, 50, is a member of the UN
    International Law Commission and foreign policy advisor of the Romanian
    president. Between 2004 and 2009, he was Romania’s agent for the International
    Court of Justice and played a major role in the Romanian-Ukrainian file over
    the maritime delineation in the Black Sea.






    REPATRIATION 41 Romanian
    citizens left the Gaza Strip on Thursday through the Rafa Border Crossing as a
    result of the moves made by the inter-institutional crisis unit through the Romanian
    embassy in Cairo and Romania’s Representation Office in Ramallah, the Foreign
    Ministry has announced. They are to arrive in Romania in the following days.
    The Foreign Ministry recalls that a group of 93 Romanian citizens and their
    families arrived in Romania on Wednesday and the Romanian diplomacy is
    continuing the dialogue with the Israeli and Egyptian authorities with the view
    to easing the evacuation of the other citizens according to the latest
    developments and the agreement of the parties involved.






    TENNIS Romanian tennis
    player Gabriela Ruse today takes on Mia Ristic in the first single match
    pitching the women tennis sides of Romania and Serbia in the play-offs of the
    Billie Jean King Cup in Kraljevo, Serbia. In the second single match, Cristian
    will be up against Krunic. On Saturday, the Romanian will be taking on Ristic,
    a match which will be followed by that pitching Ruse against Krunic. The
    doubles will oppose the pair made up of Katarina Kozarov and Natalija
    Stefanovic to Irina Bara and Monica Niculescu. Serbia has a 2-1 lead in the
    head-to-head competitions and the victor will be playing in the qualifyiers for
    the competition’s final tournament, whereas the defeated will go to Group 1. We
    recall that Romania lost to Slovenia 3-2 in April and failed to qualify for the
    final tournament.






    RATE Romania’s
    Central Bank governor Mugur Isarescu is today presenting the trimestral report
    on inflation. The aforementioned updated report reconfirms the forecast of the
    inflation’s downward trend in the following two years with an impetus in 2024
    but slightly lower than previously forecast. So the annual inflation rate is
    expected to increase at the beginning of the new year, under the impact of the
    freshly raised taxes and duties and gradually decrease in the following
    trimesters. The inflation’s downward trend is expected to gain momentum in
    2025.




    (bill)

  • Funky Citizens

    Funky Citizens

    Funky Citizens is a meeting place
    for the citizens who will not settle for the status quo, but understand the
    role they play in a democracy and often get involved in decision-making
    processes. The organisation’s strongest weapons are the initiatives that use
    technology, data and communication-based advocacy, and civic education. The NGO
    already has notable experience in encouraging the citizens who dream of an
    urban space with a coherent idea of development, in which citizens get involved
    in defining their shared space and improving their life standards.


    Elena Calistru, a member of the
    European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), and the president and co-founder
    of the organisation, tells us how it all started:


    Elena Calistru: Around
    2011 – 2012 we realised that Romania lacked a movement or organisation that
    made citizen involvement desirable for people, especially in areas that are
    rather difficult to understand. We started with a project where we monitored
    the spending of public funds, we monitored the national budget actually, which
    we tried to make comprehensible for citizens. We worked on the assumption that
    people would like to get involved in public life, but that they often find this
    kind of information very difficult to understand, and that some effort is required
    to explain to them certain basic aspects, like how legislation works, how
    institutions work and so on. This is how Funky Citizens was born.


    We asked Elena Calistru whether it
    was easy to find members:


    Elena Calistru: Obviously
    there were not a lot of citizens willing to get involved, and as an
    organisation we didn’t imagine we will get millions of people checking on local
    budgets. But we do believe that, if we get involved, things will change, and
    judging by the response we have seen since our establishment in 2012, I would
    say there are more and more people interested in what happens at local and
    national level and more and more people are getting involved in our activities,
    are donating funds, are reading our surveys.


    How can a citizen get involved in
    public life?


    Elena Calistru: Most
    often, the first step is to get informed. It sounds like a cliché, but it is
    true. Information is power, information is easier nowadays thanks to the
    internet and finding out how we can contact our MP or mayor is just a click
    away. But we tell people that citizen involvement is like sports: there are
    several levels. Ideally, we should all exercise for at least 30 minutes a day. In
    terms of citizenship, this means checking from time to time what the mayor has
    done, what parliament has done, what the government has done, and stay up to
    date on events. And obviously go vote. Then, just like in sports, there is the
    option of exercising weekly, maybe take up a sport, or go cycling. This would
    translate into signing a petition, for example, or writing to our MPs on a
    topic of interest. And the third level, the ‘professional athlete’ so to say,
    is running a marathon. This may mean joining a citizen intervention
    organisation, or challenging the local budget. We have these rights, as
    citizens.


    The number of participants in Funky
    Citizens projects varies, our guest explained, and during election periods it
    may reach thousands of volunteers. Elena Calistru, the president and co-founder
    of the organisation, also spoke about some of its most recent initiatives:


    Elena Calistru: In the
    years to come we will have 2 major challenges: one of them is to expand our
    work at local level. This is something we are already doing, we started last
    year, we are trying to go to local communities and organise training sessions
    on how local budgets are made, on how citizens can get involved, and we work
    with partner journalists. The second challenge has to do with our presence in
    the European Economic and Social Committee and other bodies, our organisation
    has been working for a while now in international projects, especially in
    Central and Eastern Europe, I have been a member of the Committee since last
    year. We are trying to make the voice of several Romanian NGOs better heard in European
    institutions.


    Whether we speak about European
    funds for national or local projects, when we look at the efficiency of
    spending in Romania the common element is a lack of impact. The main reasons
    for that are the absence of mechanisms to identify long-term development needs,
    prioritising financial needs based on political criteria rather than actual
    needs, and the waste of public money through corruption, fraud or poor
    management. (A.M.P.)

  • “No more criminals in public office” citizens’ initiative

    “No more criminals in public office” citizens’ initiative

    The initiative entitled No more criminals in public
    office provides for persons who received prison sentences for acts committed
    with intent to no longer be able to stand for public office in the local
    administration and Parliament or for president of the country unless the
    consequences of conviction are removed as a result of a new development. The leader
    of the centre-right Save Romania Union Dan Barna spoke about this historic
    moment and recalled that his party constantly pushed for this initiative to be
    debated as soon as possible by Parliament. He said the move does a little bit
    of moral justice to Romania:




    Today, a simple phrase becomes reality. It will no
    longer be possible to hold public office if you have a criminal conviction and
    to pretend that you have the moral justification to lead that institution.




    Dan Barna also said that the one million people who
    signed this initiative finally have their voice heard in public life. The
    ruling National Liberal Party says it supported the bill in the hope that it will
    remain a citizens’ initiative and will not be transformed into a political
    instrument. Here’s the leader of the party’s group of deputies, Florin Român:




    As a signatory of this initiative and as someone who
    helped collect signatures, I would have liked this initiative not to be tainted
    politically, because the list of signatures did not have at the top a party
    logo or a doctrine. It only said very clearly that it was something the
    citizens wanted.




    The leader of Social Democratic MPs, the largest group
    in Parliament, Alfred Simonis, spoke about political consensus and responsibility
    in making important decisions. In his opinion, this initiative can help earn
    back people’s trust in politicians:




    There is now a split that is reflected in a low level
    of trust in politicians. The Social Democratic Party, as Romania’s biggest
    party, even has the obligation to spearhead the change in the relationship between
    citizens and politicians.




    The centre-right People’s Movement Party also
    underlines that this is a project that is not associated with any political
    party and that what’s important is for its principle to become law as soon as
    possible in order to be applied. The bill will next be debated by the Senate,
    but in order to become law it must be put to a referendum to be held within 30
    days of the adoption of the bill by the upper chamber of Parliament. The Save
    Romania Union has proposed that the referendum be held at the same time as the
    local elections on the 27th September, given the health situation connected
    to the spread of Covid-19. (CM)

  • Resolutions of the European Parliament

    Resolutions of the European Parliament

    Starting with the first session of 2020, the European Parliament adopted resolutions reflecting the EU’s stand on some very sensitive issues of the moment. The MEPs voted on the European Green Deal bill which had been previously presented by the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent in Strasbourg, the EP established that the future law on climate should be more ambitious than the proposals of the Commission regarding the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.



    The EP wants the Union to adopt these objectives much ahead of the UN conference on climate change that was scheduled for the autumn of 2020. Equally, the MEPs want to set out an intermediate target for 2040 and thus make sure that the EU is on the right track in terms of reaching climate neutrality in 2050.



    The EP resolution also asks for the creation of a Border Carbon Adjustment mechanism that should be compatible with the norms of the World Trade Organization. The MEPs warned that they would modify all legislative proposals with a view to complying with the green deal targets. They also talked about a project aimed at reforming the way in which the EU is functioning and at bringing it closer to the citizens’ expectations.



    The EP wants the citizens’ voices to be in the center of the large-scale discussions that will tackle the ways to approach internal and external challenges that were not addressed upon the conclusion of the Lisbon Treaty. The EP resolution shows that people from all walks of life, civil society representatives and interested parties at European, national, regional and local levels should get involved in establishing the priorities of the Union.



    The Vice-President of the European Commission for democracy and demography, Croat Dubravka Suica, admitted that the European Institutions did not always manage to translate the European citizens’ wishes into legislation. ‘The old way of doing politics no longer works. Citizens want us to hear them and we must listen to them and give them the feedback they need. Cooperation and courage are the new key words in this process. We must be brave and find new creative and innovative solutions to make our democracy work even better for the citizens” Vice-President Dubravka Suica said in a statement, adding that a joint declaration from the EP, the EC and the Council on this topic could pave the way for this unique partnership.



    The MEPs also debated the situation of the rights of the European citizens in Great Britain after Brexit. They say the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement includes fair and balanced provisions that will protect the citizens’ rights during and after the transition period. However, they drew attention to the problems existing in the new registration system of European citizens who want to apply for a new residence permit for the UK. (translation by L. Simion)