Financial Press Review, 23 may

Under the headline ‘European Funds: This Year’s Targeted Absorption Rate: 20-25 Percent’, the Bursa lists ‘the major difficulties in implementing projects financed with European funds’.

The Curierul Naţional also addresses this topic in an extensive interview with Radu Onofrei, President of Consultants Association for Accessing the EU funds in Romania, printed under the headline ‘EU Funds Refund: Too Many Unfeasible Projects’. ‘Due to complicated and long procedures or the lack of financing to support the investment, many initiatives are still in the project phase or in the non-refundable financing agreement phase.

‘Most of the projects that are currently in the contract phase will not be implemented, mainly because of the lack of co-financing sources’, the consultant believes.

‘Unfortunately, the authorities have realized that the procedures need to be simplified and the number of solicited documents reduced, but there have not been any measures taken yet’.

Under the headline ‘Government, the Real Parliament. The Parliament Is Busy with the Weather’, the Ziarul Financiar prints an article revealing that ‘the Parliament has not passed any significant bills this year; most of the bills have been Government emergency ordinances. The Parliament passes bills concerning ‘the honor of the Fântâna Albă heroes’, ‘the commemoration of the freeing of the Roma’ or meteorology, the newspaper reads.

Resorting to emergency ordinances ‘is going around the Parliament and turning the Government in a legislative organ’. The problem of emergency ordinances is ‘all the more troubling because the Government does not post them beforehand, as the law requires. At the Ministry of Justice you need to fill in a form in order to receive a bill passed by the Government and initiated by the Ministry of Justice, although it should be posted on the site.

‘The Government has another list that it will not publish. This way, important laws that affect a large segment of the population are passed without anybody knowing it’, the Ziarul Financiar reads.

The Curierul Naţional opens with the headline ‘Who Will Make It into First House Programme?’ ‘Banks are going to make a stricter selection, because the state is no longer covering the entire warranty’.

‘The First House 4 Programme Is On’, a Capital headline reads. ‘After a month of uncertainty, the banks are ready to give out credits for the fourth programme. The first loans could be taken in June’.

A Curierul Naţional headline reads: ‘The Government Only Intends on Paying a Third of the Tax Paid before 2008’.

‘The Government is yet again changing the pollution tax, this time in order to avoid returning the first matriculation tax to those that have won or are going to win in court’.

One solution would be to ‘make the pollution tax payable annually by all car owners, separately from the millage tax.


Translated by: Gabriela Lungu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University