October 31, 2026 UPDATE
A roundup of local and world news
Newsroom, 31.10.2026, 20:00
ANNIVERSARY On Sunday, November 1, Radio Romania celebrates its 98th anniversary. The first broadcast by the Radiotelephonic Broadcasting Corporation, as it was originally called, aired on November 1, 1928. The 98-year milestone was already marked on Friday with a concert by the National Radio Orchestra, whose history is intertwined with the very beginnings of public radio. Established in 1928 to fulfill the mission of promoting culture, a core goal of the public service radiobroadcaster, the Radio Orchestra (currently the National Radio Orchestra) celebrates this same significant anniversary. Also in honour of Radio Romania’s anniversary, the Rador News Agency organised an Open Doors Day for journalism students on October 26 and 27. On Monday, the 2026 Radio Romania Music Awards will be presented in a gala that brings together the elite of Romania’s pop-rock music scene.
POLL More than three-quarters of Romanians (78%) believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, and only 16% think Romania is moving in the right direction, according to an Avangarde poll conducted between October 21 and 26. If parliamentary elections were held next Sunday, 35% of the respondents would vote for the nationalist party AUR currently in opposition, and 26% for the Social Democratic Party, which is in power. These two parties are followed, at a significant distance, by the parties that were part of the ruling coalition until recently: the National Liberal Party (15%), USR (10%), and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (5%). Nearly one-third of the respondents (30%) believe that the top priority for Luca Niculescu’s government should be increasing wages and pensions, followed by fighting corruption and reducing the budget deficit and public debt.
PROSECUTOR Laura Codruţa Kövesi (Romania) concludes her 7-year term as head of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), a position she took in 2019, when she became the first European Chief Prosecutor. As of November 1, the institution will be led by her deputy, the German prosecutor Andrés Ritter. According to the EPPO’s annual report, the office had over 3,600 ongoing investigations at the end of last year, with estimated damages amounting to more than EUR 67 billion. More than two-thirds of the amount accounts for proceeds from fraud involving European Union money, particularly VAT and customs duties. While voicing pride in the institution’s achievements, Laura Codruţa Kövesi pointed to challenges such as inadequate funding and personnel, delays in revising operational regulations, and pressures on the EPPO independence.
AMBASSADORS Poland’s ambassadors to Bucharest and Beijing Saturday resigned in response to an inter-institutional dispute in Warsaw concerning the country’s Constitutional Tribunal. “Given the attempt to illegally take over the Constitutional Tribunal, I no longer see any possibility of continuing to serve as ambassador of the Republic of Poland to Romania,” Ambassador Paweł Soloch posted on X. The Constitutional Tribunal lies at the heart of a dispute between the government led by Donald Tusk and the nationalist president Karol Nawrocki. The conflict concerns judges appointed during the previous nationalist administration, whom the current Cabinet seeks to replace, while the president defends their tenure. Karol Nawrocki accuses the prime minister of orchestrating a forcible takeover of the country’s top court, while Donald Tusk says his government aims to restore the rule of law.
DRONE The airspace over Iași County, in eastern Romania, was temporarily closed down on Saturday night over an air alert, and a flight from Eindhoven (the Netherlands) was diverted. The defence ministry issued air alerts for several counties in the region. Initially, the ministry announced its radar surveillance system had detected an aerial target moving 10 km from the border with the neighbouring Republic of Moldova. Subsequently, the same source said a new target had entered the national airspace without authorisation, coming from the direction of Moldova. RO-ALERT messages urged the public to remain calm and vigilant, and not to get near any fallen objects and instead to notify the authorities immediately. (AMP)
