May 3, 2025 UPDATE
A roundup of local and world news
Newsroom, 03.05.2025, 19:56
VOTE Roughly 18 million voters are expected to the polls in Romania on Sunday to vote for their president, the one who will be heading the country for the next five years. 11 candidates are vying for the presidential seat, four independents and seven representatives of various political parties. According to the Permanent Election Authority (AEP) nearly 19 thousand polling stations have been opened on the Romanian territory. The Romanians in the Diaspora have been given three days to cast their ballots in the existing 966 stations, a record number this time. Voting abroad started on Friday and all the Romanian citizens abroad, including tourists, can cast their ballots in the aforementioned polling stations. The largest number of these stations are in Italy and Malta, 161, next comes Spain with 147, Great Britain, 108, France and the Principality of Monaco, 69, the Republic of Moldova, 64, the USA 50, Belgium, 29 and the Netherlands, 23. Most of these polling stations abroad will be open on Sunday between 7 and 21 hours, local time, with the exception of some countries in Europe, Africa, South America, the USA and Canada, where they will be closed down at 21 hours, Romania’s time. The AEP has issued nearly 300 accreditations for observing institutions, which will this time include OSCE observers as a first. The OSCE observers will be monitoring the election upon a request from the Romanian government. We recall the first round of voting held in December last year was cancelled by the Constitutional Court, which based its ruling on documents provided by the country’s Higher Defence Council, which mentioned foreign interferences in the election process.
VISAS The US Department of Homeland Security in consultation with the Department of State on Friday rescinded Romania’s Visa Waiver Programme (VWP) designation, according to a communiqué published on the institution’s web page. It recalls that on March 25, 2025, DHS paused the implementation of the VWP in order to conduct a review of Romania’s designation. That aforementioned review has concluded and, given this Administration’s focus on border and immigration security, the Department decided that Romania’s designation should be rescinded in order to protect the integrity of the Visa Waiver Programme and to ensure border and immigration security. Romania may be reconsidered for VWP designation in the future should they meet the statutory eligibility criteria. The Romanian Foreign Ministry has voiced regret regarding the decision of the US administration. ‘This is a political decision’ reflecting the priorities of the present administration in terms of security and immigration, the Romanian Ministry has said underlining that Romania has met all the legal conditions to join the programme. In turn, the Romanian government said it would continue the diplomatic dialogue at the highest level with the United States. “We consider essential that the US partners may provide all the technical details on which the temporary rescission of Romania’s VWP designation is based so that the Romanian authorities may prepare detailed answers for every issue, the Executive’s communiqué says.
TENNIS The Romanian-Russian pair made up of Sorana Cirstea and Ana Kalinskaya on Friday qualified for the finals of the doubles contest of the WTA 1000 tennis tournament in Madrid, a competition with more than 7.8 million Euros in prize money. The two clinched a two-set win, 7-6, 6-4, against Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia. Cirstea and Kalinskaya will be playing Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Martens of Belgium in the finals. Cirstea presently boasts five WTA titles in doubles contests, the latest in 2019, as well as participation in five finals.
PRESS High quality free press must be recognized, protected and endorsed, as only this way we can protect democracy and ourselves, the Romanian Minister of Education and Research, Daniel David, says in a message conveyed on Saturday, on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day. Freedom of the press is a fundamental pillar of any prosperous democracy is the message conveyed by the European Union. ‘A free press is the best shield for democracy. Journalists must be free to report without fear of censorship, intimidation or retaliation’, says the European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. The European Commission is also expressing support for freedom of the press and for the protection of independent journalists by rejecting unethical actions and the pressure threatening their freedom. High quality and independent journalism must be defended because especially young people are nowadays being exposed to news from unverified sources on social networks. Romania presently comes 55th down from a 49th previous position in a press freedom ranking conducted by Reporters without Borders. Romania occupies a lower position than the Republic of Moldova, which comes 35th. Norway tops the ranking for the ninth year in a row, whereas Eritrea, North Korea and China are at its bottom. The USA ranks 57th.
(bill)
