Financial Press Review, 21March

The Ziarul Financiar opens with the headline ‘First crisis, then African riots, disaster in Japan and now war in Libya. Romanian economy will have to face new world event whose consequences will be felt in prices and demand.’

‘Raised fears on oil market’ the Bursa headlined. Fears of price hike, of course, ‘even if the profile demand has been damaged because of the earthquake in Japan and the worsening of the monetary policy in China’, the newspaper noted. ‘If the oil quotation continues to grow, we might see a further increase in food prices, already at its record levels.’

The Bursa published a talk with financial consultant Ion Blănculescu, who ‘is expecting populist measures in the election year of 2012, which will damage the economy even more’. In his opinion, the Constitution should be changed so that all the elections take place in a single year: the presidential, the general, the local and the ones for the European Parliament.

This would be the most efficient anti-crisis measure since the Great Depression of 1929-1933. Blănculescu also considered that ‘the customs officials arrest is merely a drop in the ocean, in the fight against corruption’.

He argued that the arrests have started from the bottom of the network pyramid, and not from its top, as it should have happened, if it wanted to fight the corruption. (...) It is clear that this is just an image move’, the quoted financial consultant said.

Corruption is the main subject of the opening article in the Capital magazine article entitled ‘Invasion of cloned college degrees’. Tens of thousands of degrees can be purchased online starting from 50 lei a piece.

The pirates of the degrees became prosperous and diversified their services. ‘Plagiarism has become a national sport’, the magazine revealed.

The Ziarul Financiar headlined ‘Severin, involved in major corruption scandal.’ ‘The European Parliament has announced yesterday the start of an investigation on serious corruption allegations against three deputies - including Adrian Severin, former foreign minister of Romania between 1996 and 1997 - charged by the British newspaper The Sunday Times.

The Curierul Naţional opened with an article explaining ‘How NAFA checks large fortunes and rich journalists.’ Including the analysts who won more than 3,000 euros per month and paid no VAT. ‘The government has approved the indirect methods by which the Authority will check the undue wealth. ‘

‘NAFA is free to check the undeclared high-income revenues, the Ziarul Fianciar headlined.

The same newspaper regretted in an article that foreign investors ‘were not at the forefront of the public struggle to explain why changes in the Labour Code are so important. (...) The Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour explained as long as they understood, as they understood it, but the problem is that its not one believes them, as they are the governing power, and the people are angry after two years of crisis and cuts.’

‘If the Council of Foreign Investors and the Romanian-American Chamber of Commerce, reputable organizations, primarily serious and credible, would have stepped forward to defend the changes they have asked the government, to justify why is it important that the employment testing period to be longer, why temporary work may be a solution for young people to gain experience, etc. .. People might not get the impression of slavery’, Christian Hostiuc, editorial director of Ziarul Financiar, wrote.

Translated by: Iulia Florescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University