Romania: Press review - March 5
Mar 5, 2010

Romania: Press review - March 5.
Bucharest, March 5 /Agerpres/ - The excitement to be witnessed in the opposition National Liberal party (PNL) in connection with the new statutes to be adopted, the confirmation by Governor of the central bank Mugur Isarescu of the phenomenon of Romania's surmounting the economic difficulties that reigned supreme last year and the population's perception of the way in which the expenses out of the family budget must be resized at this time are subjects the central press focuses on on Friday, March 5.

The PNL standing delegation on Thursday approved the statutes of the party in the variant proposed by Crin Antonescu. The vote for the current Liberal chairman was overwhelming, as it was in the meeting of the political bureau that was held a night before, reads daily Jurnalul National.

Ludovic Orban did not manage to thwart Crin Antonescu's plans, as many of the Liberals he relied on chose the camp of the current PNL head, a fact that practically solved the problem of the congress a day before it started, informs Evenimentul zilei daily.

Former Premier Calin Popescu-Tariceanu too declared in favour of the individual vote and against electing people on lists. The speech reaping the most standing ovations was the one delivered by Deputy Dan Motreanu, former general secretary. 'Three months ago you asked us to support the revolution of taking action in keeping with the rules of decency [Antonescu's campaign slogan]. Now you are asking us to support the revolution of taking action in keeping with your own likes and dislikes,' said Motreanu, who was applauded by Antonescu's supporters themselves.

The senators of the ruling Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L) handed in the application for the removal of Mircea Geoana from the position of Senate's President. Constantin Igas, leader of the Democratic Liberal group, said that the request was signed by 57 senators, most of them PD-L members, but also seven independents and two members of the ruling Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR), reads newspaper Jurnalul National.

Leader of the PD-L group in the Senate Constantin Traian Igas said that the decision made by the group on starting the removal of Mircea Geoana from the position of Senate's President was a 'spontaneous gesture' and it was not previously discussed with the leaders of the party.

PD-L Senator Iulian Urban said that the application was signed by 57 of his colleagues, who are Democrat Liberal, independent and UDMR senators.. 'There are two UDMR senators,' insisted Iulian Urban, who added that 'for the time being none of my PSD [Social Democratic Party] colleagues has signed for Geoana's removal from office,' informs daily Evenimentul zilei.

Romania gradually surmounts last year's difficulties, but it needs a public debate that should establish what priorities we must direct out money to. 'The attempt to dramatically take money from one destination and use it for another purpose will not be to the advantage of social welfare,' daily Jurnalul National quotes Governor of the National Bank of Romania (BNR) Mugur Isarescu as saying.

The analysts working with the Vienna-based Institute for International Economic Studies do not think Romanian economy has good chances of recovery this year, so that we must not expect a growth, but rather a stagnation, says Cotidianul newspaper.

Romania is under the error margins of the prognosis it established with the European Union, Minister of Public Finance Sebastian Vladescu told a seminar dealing with the subject Romania, financial and economic prospects, reads daily Bursa. We can already think of getting out of the crisis, say BNR and the Ministry of Finance.

The effects of a serious programme such as the one with the IMF were felt in economy and one example is the change of the exchange rate prospect, which analysts considered to amount to 4.6 lei/euro in December and now the central bank is worried that it will appreciate too much, Romania libera newspaper quotes the BNR Governor as saying.

'We should not fly into a passion, we are on the right track. One can see the effects of a serious programme like the one with the IMF. Interests are on the decrease, they dropped to a half in one year and go on decreasing. The exchange rate has made good progress in the past two months. Starting from the prospect in December, 4.6 lei/euro, now we are worried it will appreciate too much,' added Isarescu.

While people diminish their expenses as much as they can and do not expect a rapid recovery, the BNR head and the Government think that we shall end this year optimistically. The Romanians do not see good prospects for the short and medium term future. However, the authorities say they are confident in our ending this year with good results. Our fellow countrymen decided on cutting this year's expenses as much as they can, reads a study made by the 360insight research company. The most drastic cuts are made in the money allocated for cigarettes, alcohol, clothes and home appliances. There are only few people who still want to make major investments, reads daily Evenimentul zilei.

There are numerous old cars at the scrapping centres and, for the time being at least, there are not so many people getting new ones at the motorcar representation offices. After, for only two weeks, the Romanians rushed to the centres collecting scrap iron, there are still about 29,800 vouchers to be taken. 20,200 old cars have already been scrapped, that is, two thirds of all the cars scrapped last year through the old car scrapping programme, informs Evenimentul zilei daily.

As, starting this year, the vouchers one gets in exchange for the car can be sold to the people interested, thousands of people take their rusty cars to have them scrapped. People wanting to sell their vouchers ask for 1,200-2,000 lei (about 282-470.5 euros) and the ones wanting to buy them offer between 800 lei and 1,300 lei (about 186-305.8 euros). In Timisoara (western Romania) profiteers made 2.3 billion old lei (about 47,000-70,600 euros) in a week by selling vouchers, informs Gandul daily. '20,000 Old Cars Were Scrapped, Only 460 Cars Were Sold: 'Old Car Scrapping Programme Is Not Aimed at Selling New Cars,'' is a headline related to this subject in Ziarul Financiar daily. AGERPRES
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