October 26, 2013
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România Internațional, 26.10.2013, 12:44
ECONOMY — Experts of the IMF, the World Bank and the European Commission are in Bucharest on a mission to assess the stand by agreement concluded with Romania in September. The agreement is worth around 2 billion euros plus another 2 billion euros from the European Commission. On Friday the representatives of the international lenders talked with the Romanian authorities about the 2013 budget execution, about fiscal measures and the 2014 budget. The PM Victor Ponta announced that the last budget rectification for 2013 would be negative and it is to be approved during Wednesday’s government session.
THEATER — Bucharest is hosting until November 3rd the 23rd edition of the national theater festival which includes many events among which book launches, exhibitions and workshops. The festival started on Friday with an exceptional show “Troinele”- The Trojan Women by Andrei Serban. For the first time in the history of the show, that was first staged almost 40 years ago, at the La MaMa theater in New York and then in 1990 at the national theater in Bucharest “The Trojan Women” presents the original version of the music composed by Liz Swados for the opera show.
WINTER TIME — Tonight Romania turns clocks backward one hour, 4 hours a.m. becoming 3 hours a.m. Therefore the day of October 27th will have 25 hours and will be the longest day of the year. The moment when clocks go back signals the move into autumn and winter, marking the return to Greenwich Mean Time. The daylight saving time method was first applied during WWI in 1916 by several countries in Europe and adopted by Romania in 1931. The Romanian Railway Company announced that trains would stop in stations for one hour to adjust to the new hour.
RELIGION– Thousands of Christian believers are participating in Bucharest in the pilgrimage organized to mark Saint Demetrius Day the New, the protector of the city of Bucharest. The manifestations dedicated to Saint Demetrius Day, celebrated on Sunday, will last until Tuesday. Saint Demetrius was born in the 13th century and was sanctified after an ascetic life lived in seclusion in a cave near his native village of Basarabov, south of the Danube.
EU — The leaders of the EU member states agreed at the 2-day summit concluded on Friday in Brussels that a single digital market should be implemented by the end of 2015. They also adopted a joint declaration after revelations related to the American espionage, which supports a French-German initiative for holding talks with the US. The move follows revelations according to which the American intelligence services allegedly tapped the phone conversations of German chancellor Angela Merkel and millions of calls from France. Romania was represented at the EU summit by President Traian Basescu. He said that Bucharest hoped that the Republic of Moldova would sign, at the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius, to take place at the end of November, a free trade agreement and an association agreement with the EU.
