The Romanian national broadcaster, TVR, has appointed Smaranda Vornicu-Shalit as Romania’s Head of Delegation at the Eurovision Song Contest. She will taking over from Iuliana Marciuc who was the Romanian HoD from 2017-2018.

Smaranda Vornicu-Shalit will be heading the Romanian delegation at the forthcoming 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv. In 2018 she was involved at the Golden Stag Festival as the festival’s director, she has now accepted the challenge of coordinating Romania’s delegation at the upcoming Eurovision edition in Israel.

Smaranda says:

It is a great honour and also a great responsibility to be appointed as part of TVR’s team for the Eurovision 2019 project. I wish the experience gained during the Golden Stag International Festival can support the common dream that we all have, whether we are talking about artists, fans or the organisers. We all want the best possible result for Romania in the contest in Tel Aviv!

Romania will be selecting its Eurovision 2019 act and entry via its traditional national selection Selectia Nationala on 17 February. The Romanian national final is set to be held in Bucharest.

Romania in Eurovision

Initially Romania attempted to debut at the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest in Millstreet when it competed in the special semi-final in Slovenia with Dida Dragan. Unfortunately the country failed to qualify and win one of the three golden tickets to Ireland and had to wait one more year to join the Eurovision family.

Romania debuted at the the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994 with Dan Bitman and is yet to win the event. The country’s best placing in the contest was achieved in 2005 (Luminita Anghel) and 2010 ( Paula Seling & Ovi) when it placed 3rd in the Grand Final.

Romania has participated 22 times in our beloved contest. In 2016 the country was sanctioned by the EBU due to its broadcaster’s overdue debt and was forced to stay out of the competition, despite having chosen its Eurovision entry and act for Stockholm.

In 2018 Romanian band The Humans were crowned the winners of the Romanian national final and flew to Lisbon with their entry Goodbye. Despite a great performance the country failed to qualify to the Grand Final for the first time in its ESC history, thus breaking its record of qualifying to the Grand Final every time since the introduction of the semi-finals.