Radio România Internațional

Tag: coronation

  • May 3, 2023

    May 3, 2023

    BANK The foreign currency reserves of the
    National Bank of Romania were in excess of EUR 53 bln at the end of April, up 0.21%
    compared to the previous month. The gold reserves stay at 103.6 tonnes. High
    forex reserves ensure investor confidence, analysts explain, adding that this
    was mostly due to EU fund receipts.


    UNEMPLOYMENT The unemployment rate in Romania dropped slightly, from
    5.5% in February to 5.4% in March, but unemployment among youth remains high,
    at 22.2%, the National Statistics Institute reports. The number of people
    between the ages of 15 and 74 receiving unemployment benefits in March was over
    453,000, a decrease compared both to the previous month of this year and to the
    corresponding period in 2022. Among men, the rate was 5.8%, whereas the
    proportion of unemployed women was 5%. For adults aged 25 to 74, the
    unemployment rate stood at 4.4%.


    CORONATION Margareta, Custodian of the Crown of
    Romania, and the Prince Consort, will take part on Saturday in the coronation
    of King Charles III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,
    the Royal House of Romania announced today in a Facebook post. In the 157 years of existence of the Royal House of
    Romania, the connection with the British royal family has been steady, based on
    admiration, respect and affection, both in its official dimension, representing
    the two nations, and in its private, family aspect, reads the post. The Royal
    House adds that this reliable relationship has spanned the 19th, 20th
    and 21st centuries and five generations.


    PRESS The World Press Freedom
    Day celebrated on the 3rd of May occasioned the opening of a special
    exhibition at the National Romanian Literature Museum in Bucharest. The event
    was organized jointly with the Romanian Union of Professional Journalists. The
    exhibition, which opens a series of events devoted to journalists in all fields,
    is intended as a starting point for a future Museum of Romanian Press. The World
    Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993, and is
    designed to highlight the importance of and the need for freedom of expression.


    EDUCATION A draft law regulating higher education in Romania was
    approved by the specialist committee in the Chamber of Deputies, with a number
    of amendments. Among other things, grants and training programmes will be
    offered every year to Romanians from abroad who wish to study in Romania. Welfare
    grants may be received concurrently with other types of grants, should student
    meet relevant criteria. As for salaries, higher education institutions may
    increase salaries within their approved budgets. Fines have also been
    introduced, ranging from EUR 20,000 to 40,000, for those who sell BA, MA or
    doctoral theses online, in violation of intellectual property rights. The new
    laws on the undergraduate and higher education sectors will most likely be
    subject to voting in the Chamber of Deputies next week. The Senate is then to take
    its final vote.


    GRAINS The European Commission
    announced exceptional and temporary preventive measures on imports of
    a limited number of products from Ukraine. They concern only 4 products-wheat, maize,
    rapeseed and sunflower seed-and are designed to alleviate logistical
    bottlenecks concerning these products in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and
    Slovakia. Meanwhile, Romania will receive an additional EUR 30 bln
    to support farmers affected by the cheap grains imports from Ukraine. (AMP)

  • Greater Romania and the sacrifice it required

    Greater Romania and the sacrifice it required

    On October 16, 1922, after
    the grand ceremony in which King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie were crowned as
    sovereigns of Greater Romania in the Alba Iulia Cathedral, the Triumphal Arch
    was also inaugurated. The royal procession, with representatives of European
    countries, military units and floats paraded under it at the time. In 2022, the
    centennial of the Coronation is also the centennial of the Triumphal Arch, the
    first permanent monument of this kind in Romania.




    Public monuments
    rooted in ancient Roman architecture, triumphal arches were built in Bucharest just
    like elsewhere in the world, to commemorate war victories or significant public
    events. The previous such monumental structures in the Romanian capital city
    had only been temporary, and had been built in 1848, 1859, 1878, 1906 and 1918 to
    celebrate glorious events: the 1948 revolution, the union of the Romanian
    Principalities, Romania’s independence, 40 years of rule for King Carol I, the
    victory in World War I.




    The triumphal arch
    under which King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie passed on their return to their
    capital as sovereigns of the Greater Kingdom of Romania was built in 1922, and
    made of wood. But this was also when a decision was made to build a stone arch.
    The current Arch is a 27m tall structure designed by the Romanian architect Petre
    Antonescu and inaugurated in 1936.




    A commemoration held this
    year to mark the events that took place 100 years ago included an exhibition
    paying tribute to the Romanian soldiers that fought in World War I. The items
    on display within the Arch mainly consisted of letters sent home by soldiers
    and received by them from families and friends.




    Emotion and poetry
    are the best words to describe these documents. Moreover, even when all the
    authors of such letters understood the political reasons behind the war, they
    still regarded it as absurd.




    We asked Titus Bazac,
    inspector with the Bucharest City Hall’s Directorate General for Architecture,
    Landscaping and Public Monuments, about the highlights of this exhibition.




    Titus Bazac:Inside the two piers of the Arch
    there are two halls. In both of them as well as on the two landings, there are
    several dioramas. In one of the piers, there is a replica of a peasant home
    interior, where a mother is crying while knitting socks for her son and
    wondering why he had to go to battle. She is wondering whether this suspension
    of the natural cycle of life, with her son going away from home, was in any way
    sensible. Then we have another interior, it may be either a rural or urban
    house, with a lamp on a table and a mother asking why she had to go through
    this ordeal, battling her decision to allow her son to go to war, a dramatic
    scene altogether.




    The walls of the Arch
    are covered in collages of photographs and facsimiles of archive letters. Mother
    is sick with worry about your fate, a soldier’s sister writes. My love, the
    kid and I are missing you and waiting for you to come home, an officer’s wife
    says. My son, be a man, do your duty and come back in one piece, a father
    writes to a soldier.




    In the attic,
    visitors go under a huge roll of paper spread over the ceiling, coming up from
    one pier and carrying on down on the other pier. Titus Bazac also gave us
    details about what the exhibition includes in the second pier:




    Titus Bazac:On the way down on the second pier we
    have a diorama of a trench where a soldier is simply devastated by the
    situation the war faced him with. Another soldier is trying to write a few
    words to his family but cannot decide how his letter should begin. And the last
    scene, a little chilling, is a grave. We can see on a monitor a firing squad, a
    symbol of the cruelty with which all WWI soldiers had to struggle. It is also
    relevant for an episode in writer Liviu Rebreanu’s works: the Romanian soldier
    forced to fight against other Romanians. He eventually switches sides, but is
    caught and executed. This is the most emotional moment of this exhibition.




    The coronation of
    King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie as sovereigns of Greater Romania in 1922 would
    not have been possible without the sacrifice of the entire Romanian society. And the Triumphal Arch, the most powerful material
    testimony to those times, reminds us of those sacrifices to this day. (AMP)

  • October 21, 2019

    October 21, 2019

    CORONATION – President Klaus
    Iohannis today met with Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, as part of his
    visit to Japan. On this occasion the two expressed hope that the Strategic
    Partnership between the two countries should be launched in 2021. Prime
    Minister Abe pointed out the partnership will bring substance to relations
    between the two states. In turn, President Iohannis said the launch of the
    Strategic Partnership will be timely and will result in positive effects at
    both political and economic level. In 2018 Japan’s Prime Minister paid a visit
    to Bucharest. Also on Monday, President Iohannis had talks with his Finnish
    counterpart, Sauli Niinisto, who extended him an invitation to visit Finland
    next year, to mark 100 years of diplomatic bilateral relations. On Tuesday
    President Klaus Iohannis will be attending the ceremony marking the coronation
    of Japanese Emperor Naruhito. The 126th emperor in an uninterrupted
    dynastic line, Naruhito took over his imperial prerogatives on May 1, 2019,
    following the abdication of Akihito, the emperor emeritus of Japan.

    CONSULTATIONS
    – Prime Minister designate Liberal Ludovic Orban is this week meeting with the leaders of parliamentary parties in
    Bucharest, as well as with representatives of civil society, to discuss the
    structure of his new government and the governing program, which he said are
    ready and will be made public in a few days. Orban already has a strategy in
    place to secure support for his new Government. Outgoing Prime Minister Viorica
    Dancila expressed confidence that no Social-Democrat MP would vote for the
    Orban Cabinet.

    APPEAL – The High Court of Cassation and Justice today voted in favor of
    an appeal filed by former Senator Dan Sova, ruling for a retrial of the case
    where he was sentenced to three years in prison for influence peddling. This
    follows the Constitutional Court’s ruling on judge panels specialized in
    corruption-related offences. Following this decision, all court cases presided
    by three-judge panels before January 23, 2019, that have resulted in a final
    sentence or are still pending, will be remanded for retrial. The National
    Anticorruption Directorate accused Sova of having received 100,000 euros in
    exchange for facilitating a judicial assistance contract between a thermal
    power plant in Govora and a local law firm. Dan Sova was released from prison
    in December last year after having served six months of his detention time,
    following a Constitutional Court ruling concerning the illegal structure of the
    five-judge panel.

    INVESTIGATION -
    Former director general of TAROM, Madalina Mezei, has today been called to
    appear before the National Anticorruption Directorate as a witness in the case
    where she accused the Interim Transport Minister, Razvan Cuc, of having
    demanded to keep planes from taking off on October 10, the day when Prime
    Minister Viorica Dancila was facing a no-confidence motion in Parliament. Madalina
    Mezei on Friday said two days ahead of the scheduled vote in Parliament,
    Minister Cuc had asked her to cancel five domestic flights and identify the MPs
    who were supposed to board the flights, which she refused. In turn, Minister
    Cuc has denied the accusations. On the other hand, outgoing Prime Minister
    Viorica Dancila has dispatched her Cabinet’s Investigation Unit to the
    Transport Ministry and the National Airline Company TAROM to clarify all the
    aspects discussed in the media.

    TENNIS – Romanian tennis player Simona
    Halep has climbed one spot in WTA standings, now in 5th place.
    Romanian-born Canadian player Bianca Andreescu is now in 4th place,
    her career best. Ashleigh Barty of Australia ranks first, followed by Karolina
    Pliskova of the Czech Republic and Naomi Osaka of Japan.

    (Translated by V. Palcu)