Romanian press review
Mar 4, 2010

Romanian press review.
Bucharest, March 4 /Agerpres/ - The intention of the representatives of the Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L) in the Senate to have the President of this body suspended, the disputes widely covered by the media among the candidates for the position of chairman of the National Liberal Party (PNL), whose congress will be held on Saturday, the attempts made by the National Bank of Romania (BNR) to relaunch credit granting, the decrease in the gross domestic product and the rising unemployment are some of the subjects dealt with by the Romanian press on Thursday.

The institution of suspension does not exist, only the one of removal from office exists, and the President of the Senate can only be removed from office at the request of the parliamentary group that nominated him at the beginning of the new legislative session, daily Jurnalul National quotes Social Democrat Mircea Geoana as saying.

Out of the blue the PD-L senators decided to demote Mircea Geoana from the leadership of the Senate. They made haste to tell the plenum yesterday what had occurred to them on Tuesday, forgetting a ruling of the Constitutional Court which stipulates that, in case of a successful removal from office, the position can only be filled by the same senatorial group, namely the Social Democratic Party (PSD), informs Evenimentul zilei daily.

Victoras turned into a bad boy. After being appointed head of the class, he immediately started to be quite authoritative. He organized the flow of cars in the courtyard of the party headquarters, put things in order on the entrance stairs by driving away all talkative persons that began gossiping with the lady journalists and imposed the rule of the golden bell: he who is not there when the bell goes signalling that one must enter the national political bureau stays out, says Adrian Ursu in newspaper Cotidianul.

The first confrontation between Crin Antonescu and Ludovic Orban will take place today as part of the permanent delegation of the National Liberal Party (PNL), which must approve the changes to the statutes of the party. The stake is the practical work, namely the way to elect the leadership of the party, on lists or by single vote, but it is also the image, the one to win will start by having an advantage on the day of the congress, reads Jurnalul National daily.

PNL leader Crin Antonescu yesterday won the first victory over first vice-chairman Ludovic Orban as the political bureau voted for his being elected on the basis of lists. Orban was the only one to vote against it, reads newspaper Evenimentul zilei.

Theoretically the wealth of public servants is checked by the National Integrity Agency. To all the others the Constitution guarantees the legal character of their wealth. It does not matter that there are owners of palaces and foreign cars benefiting from welfare, neither does it matter that they get exorbitant sums of money without giving a penny to the treasury. Head of the Directorate for Investigating Frauds within the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police Dan Bucur explains why tax evasion is a national sport, informs Jurnalul National daily.

The National Bank of Romania will make additional cuts in the monetary policy interest in the time to come, but they will be insignificant, said adviser to the BNR Governor Lucian Croitoru yesterday.

He added that there was a high demand by the private companies for more drastically cutting the monetary policy rate following the GDP contraction for last year, 7 percent, and the evolution of inflation (core inflation stood at 6.3 percent in December and at 1.903 percent in January), reads Curierul National daily.
The 7.1 percent increase in Romania's gross domestic product two years ago changed in 2009 into a decrease, constructions and trade being the main sectors to be held responsible for it. Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia and the Baltic countries are the main losers in the current economic crisis. Their economies showed the most marked drops last year, informs newspaper Adevarul.

The latest survey conducted by the recruiting site Myjob says that more and more Romanians look for a job. The unemployment rate did not change in February from January, but 8.1 percent is a record in the past eight years, informs Jurnalul national daily.

More than half of the employees of the Academia Catavencu publication, a satirical weekly founded in 1990, yesterday handed in their resignations to Doru Buscu, editorial manger of the aforementioned weekly, complaining of pressure put on the editorial staff by the employers.

The resigning team, including Mircea Toma, chief of the social and political desk, Marius Bortea, editor-in-chief, and Catalin Prisacaru, deputy editor-in-chief, is to set up a new publication, according to Evenimentul zilei newspaper.

Mircea Toma, one of the founders of Academia Catavencu magazine, said that 20-25 persons who used to work for the above-mentioned publication decided to leave the newspaper in order to create 'an alternative Catavencu,' a weekly of political satire, which will also be published online, reports daily Gandul.

The red colour of the new outfit brought no luck to the national team, which lost the first friendly match this year. Coach Razvan Lucescu has reason enough to worry, considering the preliminaries for Europe 2010, informs Jurnalul National newspaper.

Romania's national football team started with a failure in 2010: 0-2 last night in Timisoara (western Romania) against the national team of Israel. Stars Adrian Mutu and Cristian Chivu not being present, the team coached by Razvan Lucescu made a laughing stock of themselves and made one think of the developments in the latest preliminaries. Considering the way the team play now, the coach would better entreat Mutu to come back to the national team instead of driving him away, reads daily Evenimentul zilei. AGERPRES
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