Radio România Internațional

Tag: results

  • June 19, 2024

    June 19, 2024

    Visit – The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, has today received his Italian counterpart, Sergio Mattarella, on the occasion of the latter’s official visit to Bucharest. “We have deep ties with Italy, an exceptional economic dynamic, and the soul of the relationship is the Romanian communities in Italy, very well integrated,” said Klaus Iohannis. At the same time, Iohannis expressed his appreciation for the solid community of Italian entrepreneurs in Romania. He pointed out that, last year, the two countries had bilateral exchanges worth 20 billion Euros. In terms of security, Klaus Iohannis stated that Romania and Italy would continue to work together to strengthen NATO’s deterrence role on the eastern front, as well as on the southern front. In turn, the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, said that bilateral relations are excellent on all levels. According to a Presidential Administration press release, in 2024, Romania and Italy celebrate 145 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, as well as 60 years since these relations were taken to embassy level.

     

    Election results – The final results of the European Parliament elections were announced by the Central Electoral Bureau and published in the Official Gazette of Romania. The Social Democratic Party (PSD) – National Liberal Party (PNL) alliance ranked first with 48.5% of the votes, followed by the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, with a little under 15%, the United Right Alliance, with 8.7%, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania with almost 6.5% and the SOS Romania party with a little over the required threshold of 5%. The independent candidate Nicolae Ştefănuţă was voted by 3.08% of Romanians and managed to obtain another European Parliament mandate. The voter turnout was 52.4%. The Central Electoral Bureau pointed out that, of the 33 MEP mandates going to Romania, 19 went to the PSD-PNL alliance, 6 to the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, 3 to the United Right Alliance and 2 to the SOS Romania Party and another 2 to the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania.

     

    Citizenship – The Romanian Senate has adopted, as the first chamber notified, a draft law to amend the Citizenship Law, initiated by the Government, which establishes that the Romanian citizenship can be granted, upon request, to a foreign person who is married and lives outside the borders with a Romanian citizen for at least 10 years. The current legislation stipulates that, in order to grant citizenship to a foreign citizen married to a Romanian citizen, he or she must live in Romania for at least five years, which represents, in the opinion of the initiator, ‘an obstacle’. The law also provides for the necessary measures needed to acquire the Romanian citizenship and for rules to prevent its fraudulent acquisition. Thus, biometric checks are provided for persons applying for being granted the Romanian citizenship. The draft law will be debated by the Chamber of Deputies, which is a decision-making body.

     

    Euro 2024 – Today, the European Football Championship in Germany schedules one match in Group B, Croatia-Albania, and two in Group A, between the host country team and Hungary and between Scotland and Switzerland respectively. We remind you that on Tuesday, in Group E, Romania defeated Ukraine 3-0, and Slovakia won 1-0 against Belgium. Romania’s next matches are on Saturday, against Belgium, and next Wednesday, against Slovakia.

     

    Champions League – The Romanian football champions, FCSB, from Bucharest, will play in the first preliminary round of the Champions League with the San Marino team AC Virtus 1964, according to the drawing of lots made at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon. FCSB will play the first away match on July 9 or 10, and the decisive leg in Bucharest on July 16 or 17. The winner of Romania’s Cup, the second division Corvinul Hunedoara (south-west), will face the Hungarian vice-champions, Paksi FC, in the first preliminary round of the Europa League. Corvinul will play the first away match on June 11, with the second match being scheduled in Romania on July 18. (LS)

  • Who will represent Romania in the EP

    Who will represent Romania in the EP

      

     

    On Tuesday night, the Central Electoral Bureau presented the final results of the election for the European Parliament, held on June 9 in Romania. After more than a week of uncertainty, the Official Journal released the memo centralising the vote count and seat allocation, which is the official closure of the EP election.

     

    The latest figures only confirmed the ranking and the distance between the election contenders. First placed remains the alliance comprising the Social Democratic Party and the National Liberal Party, which also make up the ruling coalition in Romania, and which got 48.5% of the votes, securing 19 of Romania’s 33 seats in the European Parliament.

     

    Second came the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), in opposition, which was backed by 14.93% of the voters. AUR will send 6 MEPs in the European legislative body.

     

    The United Right Alliance ranks 3rd, having received 8.71% of the votes. Save Romania Union (USR), the People’s Movement Party and the Force of the Right thus secured 3 Deputy seats.

     

    The Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, with 6.48% of the votes, and S.O.S. Romania Party with 5.03%, have barely made the threshold and will also contribute 2 MEPs each. Adding to them is Ştefănuţă Nicolae Bogdănel, a former USR member who ran independently and was voted by 3.08% of the Romanians.

     

    According to the Central Electoral Bureau, the turnout was 9,444,894, accounting for 52.4% of the total eligible voters in Romania. For the EP election, organised by Romania concurrently with its local elections, 18,955 polling stations were opened in the country and 915 abroad. The total number of valid votes cast in the polling stations abroad was 210,410.

     

    The Social Democrats and the Liberals won the election for the EP in the diaspora as well, with 21.35% of the votes, followed by the United Right Alliance with 16.34%, and by AUR, with 14.65%. S.O.S. Romania carried 13.52% of the votes, REPER Party 9.7%, the United Diaspora Party 7.05%, and the non-affiliated candidate Ştefănuţă Nicolae-Bogdănel 5.9%.

     

    Romania is to organise 2 more elections this year. In autumn, Romanians will be asked to elect the country’s president and the members of the national parliament. But while the general election date has already been set for December 8, the date of the presidential vote is still subject to negotiations between the Social Democrats and the Liberals in the ruling coalition. (AMP)

     

  • December 6, 2023

    December 6, 2023

    Measles – The Romanian Health Ministry has declared a national measles epidemic. The measure comes after the confirmation of almost 2,000 cases since the beginning of the year. In the last week of November alone, almost 200 cases were reported. The Ministry officials emphasize that the number of cases has increased alarmingly and more and more children need hospitalization in the pediatric and infectious disease wards. The measure taken by the authorities facilitates the vaccination of children aged between 9 and 11 months, as well as the recovery of those who are not vaccinated or whose vaccination schedule is incomplete. Measles is an extremely contagious viral disease, which can lead to complications such as encephalitis and pneumonia and even death. The symptoms of infection are similar to those of a cold, except that the temperature can rise up to 41 degrees C, the eyes are sensitive to light, and the rash first appears on the face and then spreads to the whole body. Anyone is at risk if they have not had the disease or are not vaccinated against measles.



    Visit – The Romanian Prime Minister, Marcel Ciolacu, continues his official visit to the US, together with the Ministers of Economy, Defense and Foreign Affairs. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent, the government delegation left Washington and arrived in New York, where meetings are scheduled today with the president of the UN General Assembly, Dennis Francis, with the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, as well as with the president of the World Jewish Council, Ronald Lauder. On Tuesday, the Romanian PM discussed with members of the American Congress on the strategic partnership between the two countries in the fields of defense, security, energy and trade. After the meeting with the Secretary for Energy, Jennifer Granholm, Ciolacu stated that the projects of units 3 and 4 from Cernavodă (south-east) and that of the small nuclear unit from Doicesti (south) remain a priority, in the context in which Romania has set ensuring energy independence as one of its main objectives.



    Handball–Romania’s womens national handball team will play, on Thursday, in the Danish city of Herning, against Germany, its first match in the main Group III of the World Championship. Later, the Romanian players will meet Poland and Japan. The two top ranking teams qualify for the quarterfinals. Romania entered the group with 2 points, after, in the first phase of the competition, it defeated Chile and Serbia and was outranked by Denmark. The star of the Romanian national team, Cristina Neagu, four times appointed the best handball player in the world, has not yet played. Romania is the only team that has participated in all 26 editions of the World Womens Handball Championship and its record includes one gold medal (1962), two silver medals (1973, 2005) and one bronze medal (2015). In the previous edition, the Romanian handballers ranked 13th.



    JHA – The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, stated, after the Council of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) meeting, on Tuesday, in Brussels, that the Commissions objective remains to make a decision, this year, on the extension of Schengen and the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the free travel area. From Washington, the Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu explained that the political moment was not favorable for Romania to ask for a new vote in the JHA Council on Tuesday, but he expressed optimism that this could happen soon. Last year, Austria voted, in the JHA Council, against the admission of both countries to the Schengen area, while the Netherlands had reservations only regarding Bulgaria. For Schengen accession, unanimity is needed.



    PISA – The average scores obtained by Romanian students were similar to those recorded in 2018 in Mathematics, Reading and Science, according to the Program for International Student Assessment – PISA 2022, launched in Bucharest. Asia, led by Singapore, stood out once again in this educational program, carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The results show that Romania is below the OECD average in all three areas tested. The main striking fact of the PISA 2022 edition consists in an “unprecedented drop in the performance” of students, according to specialists. Among the main reasons are: the health crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis in the attractiveness of the teaching profession, which affects more and more countries, as well as the quality of teaching, the lack of support for teachers and students or cooperation in schools, or even the involvement of parents in schooling, which decreased compared to 2018. (LS)

  • Romanian students get poor PISA results

    Romanian students get poor PISA results

    Romania is is not making progress in the PISA tests. The results obtained by students in the country, last year, are equally poor to those of 2018. Romania is last but one in the EU in this respect, ahead of Bulgaria. Almost 700,000 students from 81 countries took part in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) staged by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) after the pandemic, and the subject matter was mathematics. Through this programme, the OECD aims to assess education systems around the world by testing the skills of 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics and science.



    A little over half of the Romanian children of this age proved that they have at least an acceptable level in these subjects. At global level, Romania is behind the education systems of countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and even Ukraine, which participated with several regions in the assessment carried out during the war. Singapore ranks first in this report, with the best results in all three areas. The Romanian Minister of Education, Ligia Deca, said that the new education laws adopted this year will improve the situation.



    Ligia Deca: “Romanias PISA results have remained stable in the last few years, but it is time to make some progress. We need to increase from 5 to 7 out of 10 the number of students who demonstrate at least minimal skills in reading, science and mathematics. The new pre-university education law creates the necessary framework for improving students skills in the three fields, reducing the existing academic gap among students with different social, economic and cultural status. The results of the new legislative framework will be seen in the next editions of the PISA studies.”



    The Ministry of Education claims that, unlike many other countries, Romania has not recorded significant decreeses in students’ academic performance, which proves that the education system is resilient. European countries such as France, Norway or Germany have recorded decreases. By contrast, in Europe, Estonia, Switzerland, Ireland, Austria, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Denmark fared better, with scores above the OECD average, as did Canada. The report, which examines data collected in 2022, is the first since the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it recognizes the negative impact of quarantine periods on education, the report also refers to other problems, such as the decrease in parental involvement in childrens education, as factors that contribute to lower levels of education.



    The data also shows that in education systems where academic scores remained high, students sense of belonging also improved, as they tend to feel safer and less exposed to bullying and other risks in school. The next assessment will take place in 2025, when the level of learning will be tested in sciences. The innovative field will be learning in the digital world, and the knowledge of the English language will be tested optionally. (EE)

  • Prospects for the Victoria Palace

    Prospects for the Victoria Palace

    Five parties have entered the new Parliament in Bucharest, following the legislative elections of December 6. According to the final results provided by the Central Electoral Bureau, the Social Democratic Party won the elections with around 29% of the votes both in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies. It is followed by the National Liberal Party, with about 25% of the votes and the Save Romania Union-PLUS Alliance – USR PLUS, with over 15%. 4th ranked is the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), recently set up and barely known, which managed, to the general surprise, to obtain about 9% of the votes. 5th ranked with almost 6% is the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania — UDMR.



    The legislative elections of December 6 in Romania saw the lowest turnout in the last three decades, about 32%. On Sunday evening, when the polls closed, the Social Democrat leader Marcel Ciolacu and the liberal leader Ludovic Orban were both aware that their parties would not be able to govern alone. That is why PNL subsequently announced that it was starting negotiations for the formation of a parliamentary majority, and also of the future Government, proposing the current Finance Minister, Florin Cîţu, for the post of Prime Minister.



    Ludovic Orban: “A difficult period will follow when we need people that have a good knowledge of the administration, of the public finances situation. We need a prime minister who has credibility in front of the business environment, in front of the international financial institutions. I think the finance minister is a very good proposal. I hope that, through negotiations, we will be able to form a parliamentary majority.”



    PNL wants a majority in Parliament together with the USR-PLUS Alliance, UDMR and the representatives of the national minorities group, other than the Hungarian one. Negotiations are not going to be easy, though, given that the Liberals do not want to give up the Finance, Justice or Transport Ministries, which USR-PLUS would also like. On the other hand, the Social Democrats claim the position of prime minister, and want to designate medical professor Alexandru Rafila to the post, insisting that the countrys president Klaus Iohannis must appoint the prime minister proposed by PSD, 1st ranked in the December 6 elections.



    Alfred Simonis: “We are imperatively asking the president to give up backstage plotting and respect the will of the voters, to be aware that he is the head of a state in a deep crisis, that the election campaign is over, and we also remind him that he represents Romania not the National Liberal Party.”



    The Social Democrats say they will not vote in Parliament on any proposal for a Liberal prime minister and consider rejecting participation in the consultations with the head of state, if PSD is not the first party invited for consultations. (tr. L. Simion)

  • Results of the Moldovan parliamentary elections

    Results of the Moldovan parliamentary elections

    Moldovas Central Election Committee has approved the final results of the February 24 parliamentary elections and has announced the number of seats that parties will have in Chisinaus new Parliament.



    President Igor Dodons pro-Russian Socialists have secured 35 of the total 101 MP seats. The senior partner in the self-professed pro-Western government, the leftist Democratic Party, led by the controversial oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, has got 30 seats, and the ACUM bloc, an electoral cartel of the pro-European right wing got some 26 seats. Seven seats went to the populist party led by the pro-Russian mayor of the town of Orhei, in the centre, Ilan Şor, who was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months in prison in a billion-dollar bank fraud case.



    Three independent candidates will also become MPs. The former single party in the Soviet era, the communist party, will no longer be represented in parliament for the first time, and nor will the parties that explicitly lobby for joining Romania, namely the Christian Democrats and then the Liberals.



    Without a clear winner, the election outcome allows for a number of political scenarios. The pro-European opposition has already turned down the Democratic Partys proposal to form an alliance that should carry out reforms, get closer to the EU and fight against corruption.



    The leaders of ACUM, Maia Sandu and Andrei Nastase, who have denounced unprecedented vote rigging, and said, during the election campaign, that their lives were threatened, are now saying they will not form a coalition with a party seen as deeply corrupt. An alliance between Socialists and Democrats would have secured a comfortable majority of two-thirds of Parliament. The two parties, however, seem incompatible in both political and geopolitical terms, as the Democrats are still using a Pro-European rhetoric while the Socialists follow the Russian one.



    The countrys president, Igor Dodon, has warned that unless parties make up a government coalition he would call for early elections. Unanimously considered the strongman of the Moldovan political arena, Plahotniuc has expressed readiness to negotiate with anyone and to disregard any ideological differences. Pundits tend to believe he will once again manage to form a majority, rallying around his Democratic Party, if not parties, at least MPs always willing to abandon the logo under which they have been elected.



    The most consistent and staunchest supporter of Moldovas sovereignty, territorial integrity and modernisation, Romania says it is very important for the post-election stages to unfold in a responsible and democratic manner, with the observance of the democratic principles needed for the countrys stability and for the preservation of a European perspective. Because this, Bucharest has also said, is the only perspective able to meet the Moldovan citizens legitimate expectations of prosperity.



    (translated by: Elena Enache)

  • Results and alliances after the local elections

    Results and alliances after the local elections

    Romania’s post election map is predominantly two-colored. Both claiming more than 30% of the votes in Sunday’s local elections, the Social Democrats and the Liberals have preserved most of the traditional fiefs – the Social Democrats won in the counties in the south and east of Romania, while the Liberals in those in the west, center and northeast.



    Now both parties know exactly what to expect from their voters in their fiefs at the legislative elections due in autumn. Until then, the parties need to make nominations for the local administration and first of all to the position of president of the 41 county councils; the presidents of the county councils were not elected by the citizens. They will be designated from among the councilors.



    The leader of the Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea, enjoys his party’s victory and promises to remain loyal to the old alliances with their junior partners in the former government led by the Social Democrat Victor Ponta, namely the National Union for the Progress of Romania- UNPR and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe-ALDE.



    Liviu Dragnea: “In 14 counties of Romania, the Social Democratic Party has obtained the majority on its own, and will be able to assign the presidents of the county councils. In another 11 counties we can have the majority with the help of ALDE. In another two counties we could have the majority through an alliance with ALDE and UNPR. In terms of county towns, the Social Democrats claimed 19. The Social Democratic Party has a larger number of town halls won than what they had advanced at the elections.”



    Dragnea added that he ruled out any negotiations with the Liberals and the People’s Movement Party of the former president, Traian Basescu. With only 32% of the votes as compared to the Social Democrats’ 37%, the Liberals remain the second political force in Romania and co-president Vasile Blaga is happy with the results saying that this is the best percentage the Liberals have reported after the 1990s.



    Vasile Blaga: “We have obviously managed to rebuild the right wing, which was no easy task. We will focus on this issue in the coming weeks in an attempt to contradict all predictions that did not trust this construction or that tried to put obstacles in its way.”



    The Liberals, however, found it hard to accept what commentators call the ‘disastrous results’ in Bucharest. The capital alone accounts for one 10th of the national voter pool. According to sociological studies, Bucharest has the most sophisticated and demanding voters, most of rightist orientation. However, more than two thirds of them did not go to the polls on Sunday, and those who voted gave their votes to the Social Democrats, both for the general mayor and the mayors of the capital’s 6 sectors. The Liberals ended up on 3rd place, at a great distance from the Save Bucharest Union, a former NGO turned into a party.



    Their leader, Nicuşor Dan, wants his party to have national representation until the legislative elections: “We have a category of citizens in Romania who are aware of the failure of the political class, of the generalized corruption in the public administration, a category of people who are waiting for an alternative.”



    Nicuşor Dan pointed out that they would make no political alliances whatsoever, adding that they would vote selectively, in the Bucharest councils, depending on the projects presented.