September 21, 2014
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România Internațional, 21.09.2014, 12:00
The Romanian Foreign Ministry has finalized the list of polling stations from abroad in the run up to the November presidential election. 294 polling stations will be set up for the Romanian citizens who want to cast their votes in November for Romania’s future president. The polling stations will be set up at the headquarters of the Romanian diplomatic and consular missions, in the Romanian cultural institutes from abroad, in the theaters of operations from Afghanistan as well as in other locations that allow for the unfolding of a correct and unbiased voting process. On Saturday several political leaders launched their candidacy for the November presidential election: The Social Democratic PM Victor Ponta, the Liberal Klaus Iohannis, the candidate of the Christian Liberal Alliance and the president of the Greater Romania Party, Corneliu Vadim Tudor. The election campaign for the presidential election will start on October 3rd, the first round of voting will be held on November 2nd while the second round on November 16th.
The IMF, the European Commission and the World Bank have agreed to postpone the liberalization of the gas price for domestic consumers and also accepted the deadlines proposed by the Romanian side, said the minister delegate for energy, Razvan Nicolescu. He approached this issue with Romania’s foreign creditors in Brussels. Early this month minister Nicolescu announced he would suggest the Brussels officials that the internal gas price for the population should remain the same until July 1st 2016 and that the liberalization period should be extended up until July 2021 as compared to December 31st 2018 as the current timetable stipulated. According to the energy market liberalization timetable that Romania assumed in 2012 before the IMF and the European Commission, the gas price for the population should have been increased by 3% as of October 1st 2014.
In Bucharest continues the 2nd edition of the International Radio Orchestras Festival –RadiRo, the only European musical event devoted exclusively to radio orchestras, organized by Radio Romania. The concert opening the festival was performed on Saturday evening by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra that was for the first time on a Romanian stage alongside two young musicians with an up and coming international career: conductor Joshua Weilerstein and pianist Jonathan Biss. The next concert on the agenda of the Festival is scheduled for Sunday evening: the National Radio Orchestra will perform under the baton of conductor Cristian Mandeal, with the participation of soprano Katarina Jovanović. The festival will come to an end on September 27th. The honorary director of RadiRo 2014 is conductor Cristian Mandeal.
Fairs, exhibitions, concerts and the famous battle of flowers on the high street are some of the events prepared for the inhabitants of Bucharest. Romania’s capital is celebrating this weekend 555 years since it was first attested in documents, in an act issued in 1459 by Vlad the Impaler, the ruler of Wallachia. Saturday saw open-air concerts and culinary fairs while the George Enescu Square in downtown Bucharest hosted the Folk You Festival. Bucharest has been Romania’s capital since 1862. Between the two World Wars the elegant architecture and the elite of those times made Bucharest be called the “Little Paris”.
