The question that weighs heaviest on the minds of Romanian voters is whether the referendum scheduled for July 29th will validate the suspension of the president, Traian Basescu, an essential question for the country’s political evolution. Over 18 million Romanian citizens with the right to vote, in the country or abroad, are expected on Sunday to the polls to express their opinion on whether or not the president should be impeached.

18,548 polling stations were set up, 18,242 in Romania and 306 abroad, the largest number of them in Italy, 55, and Spain, 46. Fifty percent plus one of eligible voters have to show up at the polls in order for the referendum to be valid, which means over 9 million. The leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party, which is President Traian Basescu’s biggest supporter, urged voters not to show up for the referendum. The Social Liberal Union, however, urges them to go out and validate it. In 2007 Parliament tried to impeach the president, but the popular vote invalidated the move.

Romania’s national currency, the leu, is now over the psychological threshold of 4.6 lei to the Euro

The political clashes in Romania of late have had nefarious effects over the national currency, the leu, which is now at a record low against the single European currency. The national bank announced an exchange rate of over 4.63 lei to the Euro. The national currency also devaluated against the American dollar. The central bank on Tuesday posted an exchange rate of 3.83 lei to the dollar. Over the last three weeks, the national currency depreciated drastically, by as much as 4.2%, in spite of the intervention of the national bank on the currency market in an attempt to quell the drop.

Analysts believe that the evolution of the leu continues to be affected by the political turmoil, which has not gone unnoticed abroad. Others believe that this evolution has been in correlation to that of other currencies in the region, after the European central bank decided to pull down the reference interest rate to a historic low. However, analysts agree that the political indecision is not helping the state of the national currency, given that markets are very sensitive to such issues, and that they will continue to bear heavily on the matter.

Romania faces an unprecedented heat wave, forest fires and drought

The south and east of Romania continues to be under code yellow alert for intense heat, an alert issued across 23 counties, including the capital Bucharest. The temperatures are expected to revolve around the value of 36 to 38 degrees Celsius, even 39 degrees in places. The heat index will also be very high. The heat wave has produced dire effects. In several counties, forest fires broke out and spread rapidly, due to the drought and the high winds. Some of the fires occurred in isolated and hard to reach mountain areas. In other places, hundreds of hectares of forested pasture and reforested areas also caught on fire.

Romania also faces drought in addition to the heat wave that caused widespread fires. 80% of the corn and sunflower crops are compromised in eight counties, and more and more farmers are calling out for government aid. The county of Braila faces the most difficult situation, with its corn crop destroyed utterly. Farming experts across the country claim that there has not been a drought like this since 1946. The level of the river Danube has dropped even below two meters in places, making it impossible to reach the Danube Delta by boat. Tourist agencies claim that Romania will lose 3 million Euros if the authorities do not scrape the mud off the bottom of the river.

And Romania sends over 100 athletes to the London Olympics

This year, Romania has sent to the London Olympics over 100 athletes. They will be competing in 15 sports: athletics, boxing, rowing, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, judo, kayak-canoeing, shooting, swimming, tennis and table tennis, water polo, weight lifting and wrestling. The greatest chances of a top position are in gymnastics and fencing. Here is the head coach of the gymnastics team, Octavian Belu:

“We came here to put on an honorable appearance, we hope our girls will be at their best and we shall see what happens at the competition. Let us hope that what we have achieved so far will be enough, or at least close to what we need for us to succeed”.

The greatest Romanian gymnast of all times, Nadia Comaneci, said she hoped Romania will come out among the 10 top countries at the London Summer Olympics. The first Romanian Olympic medal was won in 1924, and so far the country’s athletes have reaped 292 medals.