November 10, 2019

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Newsroom, 10.11.2019, 14:05

ELECTION Romania is today seeing the first round of its
presidential election. 14 candidates are vying for the presidential seat and in
the first six hours since the opening of the polling stations, turnout stays
around 20.68%. More than 3,700,000 people have already cast their ballot out of
a total 18, 217,156 voters, a higher turnout compared to the first round of the
previous election in 2014. As a first, Romanians living abroad have three days
to cast their ballot and the number of polling stations abroad has doubled to
838. Over 400 thousand Romanians have so far cast their ballot in the polling
stations abroad. Out of these, 25 thousand have opted for postal voting. The
biggest turnout has been reported in Britain, Italy and Spain. The second round
of voting is due on November 24th when the Romanians living abroad
are also to be given three days to vote. The authorities have taken these
measures to avoid the huge queues registered in the previous presidential
election and in the latest European Parliament election.

COMMISSIONERS The new commissioners
designated by Romania, Hungary and France are to be interviewed by the European
Parliament next week. After they have been given the green light by the
Committee on Legal Affairs JURI, which could signal any possible conflict of
interest in the case of the three candidates – Adina Valean of Romania, Olivier
Varhelyi of Hungary and Thierry Breton of France will be interviewed by the
specialized committees of the European Parliament. The Romanian candidate will
be interviewed by the Transport and Tourism committee, Varhelyi by the Foreign
Affairs Committee and Breton by the Committee for Industry, Research and Energy.
After the interviews, the president elect of the European Commission, Ursula
von der Leyen will be presenting the entire College of Commissioners to the
community Legislature. We recall that the Romanian MEP Adina Valean has been
accepted by the European Commission president for the position of European
Transport Commissioner.

RATING A decision by the Fitch rating
agency to reconfirm Romania’s country rating to BBB – with a stable outlook has
been based on the moderate level of public debt and the positive evolution of
the GDP per capita and the human development indexes, the Finance Ministry in
Bucharest has announced. According to the aforementioned ministry, another
positive factor is the solid banking sector. In the following period, the
Ministry will be focusing on budget rectification and budget construction for
2020, crucial measures for strengthening the country’s macroeconomic stability.
Fitch has also affirmed its ratings for Romania’s long-term and local currency
issuer default ratings (IDR) at BBB – with stable outlook. According to the
agency, budget and current account deficits could jeopardize macroeconomic
stability.

HANDBALL Today in
the Champions League, the Romanian champions in women’s handball, CSM Ramnicu
Valcea, takes on German side Bietigheim, while vice-champions CSM Bucharest
plays Danish side Esbjerg in a home match. CSM is already qualified for the
main groups. Two other Romanian sides, CS Gloria Bistrita-Nasaud and CSM Corona
Brasov played against each other in the third round of the EHF Cup yesterday.
Brasov won the game 27-25 coming closer to the competition’s groups. In men’s
handball, Champions Dinamo Bucharest have qualified for the Champions League’s
play-offs.

(translated
by bill)