Last night M I H A I withdrew from Selectia Nationala 2019, after the announcement of the Wildcards (Bella Santiago and Linda Teodosiu). More about his reasons you can read here.

Today, our friends from ESC Bubble announced that TVR made a statement about the National Selection:

Selectia Nationala is organised for the purpose of finding the representative of Romania at the Eurovision Song Contest, the act with the greatest potential who will then achieve the best possible result in this international prestigious competition.
Eurovision is a contest where the talented and strong win, but first of all, they remain in the race accepting the challenge of competition. Any artist is free to sign up or, where appropriate, give up and withdraw.
TVR organises the national selection in the spirit of transparency, with the whole rules and regulations being published with the launch of entries on the official website. The selection of wildcards was made by the same jury on the basis of the same criteria as at the preselection.
We are glad that there was a great interest for wildcards as well as for the preselection, and the two acts which qualified this way will bring more value to the national selection.
Surely, the competition will be more intense, the show will be more exciting, and Eurovision fans will only have to gain.

We want to remind you that this year, Selectia Nationala 2019 will consist of two semi finals and a Grand Final. The first semi final will be held in Iasi on the 27th of January and the second one in Arad on the 10th of February. Romania’s representative in Tel Aviv will be decided on the 17th of February in Bucharest.

Source: ESC Bubble