October 7, 2025
A roundup of local and world news
Newsroom, 07.10.2025, 13:55
CEI On January 1, 2026, Romania will be taking over the presidency of the Central European Initiative (CEI) – the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest said. Under the rotation principle in the organization chairmanship, Romania will be succeeding Serbia, which ends its mandate on December 31st, 2026. According to the Foreign Ministry, ‘the move reconfirms Romania’s key interest in regional cooperation, good vicinity relations and the process of European accession of the candidate countries, both those from the eastern vicinity, like the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine and the partners in the Western Balkans’. Romania’s priorities during its mandate are to contribute to the process of stepping up the candidates’ EU accession, to make regional cooperation more dynamic with emphasis on connectivity, and step up the political dialogue among the participants and economic cooperation. The CEI is a regional cooperation format, including nine EU members, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and seven EU candidates, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, the Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Ukraine. Romania hasn’t held the CEI rotating presidency since 2009.
LAW With 123 yes votes and six abstentions, the Senate in Bucharest endorsed the Digital Age Act, which introduces, for the first time in Romania, the concept of ‘legal digital age’ which is 16, setting up a clear framework for the minors’ access to online platforms. So, children are going to need parental consent to have their own online accounts, whereas providers will have to apply age detection filters and interdictions to personalized ads for minors. The act will be submitted to the Chamber of Deputies for a decisional vote.
FOOTBALL Romania’s national football side is preparing the games it is going to play this week in Bucharest against the teams of the Republic of Moldova and Austria. Selector Mircea Lucescu has summoned 14 Romanian internationals and 14 players from the national football league. Romania plays a friendly with the neighboring Republic of Moldova on Thursday, and takes on Austria on Sunday in a game counting towards Group H of the preliminaries of World Cup 2026. Bosnia-Herzegovina ranks first in the group with 12 points out five games, followed by Austria with 12 points out of four games, Romania, 7 points out of five matches, Cyprus with four points and San Marino with no points. The winners of the 12 preliminary groups are qualified for the World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico, whereas the sides on the second positions together with the best 4 winners of the Nations League will go into play-offs to the decide the last four European national sides qualified. Romania’s latest participation in a final tournament was in France in 1998.
TRAIN A direct train route will become available on October 10th, linking the cities of Kyiv – Ungheni and Bucharest. According to the national company CFR, the ticket price on this route is 73.4 Euros and the distance between the two capitals will be covered in 24 hours. We’ll be having more on this after the news.
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