21 September 2019, UPDATE

More candidates join the race for presidential elections./ Prime minister Viorica Dancila to begin trip to the United States.

Newsroom, 21.09.2019, 18:30

Presidential race. Two more
candidates have joined the race for the presidential elections to be held in
Romania in November. They are Kelemen Hunor, from the Democratic Union of
Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, and Mircea Diaconu, who has the backing of the
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats and the Pro Romania party. The incumbent
president Klaus Iohannis, on behalf of the National Liberal Party, and Dan
Barna, who is backed by the USR-PLUS alliance, officially joined the race on
Friday. Other candidates include the Social Democrat prime minister Viorica
Dancila and Theodor Paleologu, on behalf of the People’s Movement Party. The
deadline for registering in the election race expires Sunday at midnight. The
election campaign begins on the 12th of October, but the outdoor
advertising has already begun in Bucharest.

Visit. Romania’s prime minister Viorica
Dancila on Sunday begins a 1-week working visit to the United States. She will
be accompanied by the defence minister Gabriel Les and the finance minister
Eugen Teodorovici. Dancila says she will have talks with vice-president Mike
Pence and attend a meeting on combating terrorism. She has also spoken about the
signing of a memorandum on energy and of a document in the area of health with
the World Bank. Her agenda also features meetings with American business
people, whom she will present with the advantages of investing in Romania. The
prime minister also says she plans to meet representatives of the Romanian
community in the United States.

Waste. It’s been nine years since
the Let’s Do It, Romania! organisation has been organising a campaign in which
tens of thousands of volunteers gather to collect tonnes of waste. The
initiative forms part of a wider project involving more than a hundred
countries from around the world. A volunteering action to clean Romania’s
beaches also began on Saturday. According to its organiser, the Act for
Tomorrow association, waste floating on the water surface near the Black Sea
shore is collected. On Monday, divers will pick some of the solid waste on the
sea bed along the coast. An activity to clean the banks and waters of the river
Danube will be carried out in October. 254 kg of household waste per capita per
year is produced in Romania, and less than 10% is recycled, much below the
European average of 28%. If Romania fails to achieve a recycling rate of 50%
starting next year, it faces penalties of up to 200,000 euros a day and the
suspension of EU funds for environmental protection.

Navy vessel. The Mircea training
vessel is completing this weekend its first stops in the Danube ports in its 80
years in the service of the Romanian Navy. Its journey began on the 15th
of September in Tulcea, followed by Galati, Braila, and, finally, Sulina.
According to a statement from the Naval Forces, tens of thousands of people have
visited the vessel this week.