Financial Press Review, 24 May

The Bursa opened its edition with the title ‘Heavy (influence) traffic at high level. According to the newspaper, ‘judicial sources said that tens of crude oil ships were brought to the Constanţa Harbour, where they were not properly checked because of the alleged interference made ​​by the PDL Senator of Constanţa, Mircea Baniaş and the Secretary General of the Interior, Laurenţiu Mironescu, as well as other customs officials.’

Yesterday’s action ‘was somewhat expected, as it has been demanded by President Traian Băsescu ever since February, the Ziarul Financiar wrote. The two senior officials mentioned, Mironescu and Baniaş, were ‘very influential people of the area’, the newspaper also noted. Mironescu, ‘before reaching his position in the Ministry of Interior, which ensured direct access to information on economic crime and tax evasion, he worked in the shipping business, as a ship captain, foremost captain and manager within the Administration of the Constanţa Harbour,’ the newspaper wrote, shortly noting that ‘Mironescu is associated in a firm with Raluca Basescu, the daughter of Mircea Băsescu, the president’s brother.’

‘In turn, before becoming a senator, Baniaş held the managing position of the Administration of the Constanţa Harbour.’

All the newspapers mentioned that Senator Mircea Baniaş was acquitted of criminal prosecution in February, although he was initially accused of favoring the offender in the UCM Resita case on an alleged fake engine export, for which it has been demanded a VAT refund of 60 million euros. ‘Controls in the customs of Romania broke out earlier this year with the announcement that we will not enter the Schengen area as a result of the justice failure and because of corruption accusations regarding the Romanian customs’, the Ziarul Financiar wrote, as well as the other financial newspapers.

Under the heading ‘Wind power: wind turbines generated energy in three months for whole year’, the Ziarul Financiar wrote that ‘thereby 2011 became the first year in which the green energy could play an important role in the structure of electricity generation in Romania, with a share of around 5 percent. In 2015, green energy could reach 15 percent of the entire locally generated electricity.’

The Ziarul Financiar covered the experience of a young Romanian entrepreneur in the 10 000 euros program for young entrepreneurs, initiated by the Romanian government.

The article’s title: ‘Andrei Petran, the young man who wanted to establish a travel agency, was confronted with bureaucracy: he did not sell any holiday, but he spends days with papers for the ministries.’

‘State owes 8 billion lei to the budgetary’, the Ziarul Financiar headlined an article on the enforcement orders won in court by the public sector employees, who have previously sued the state.

‘Due to the government’s ineptitude in writing normative acts to withstand the judicial enforcement, the state found out that it has to pay an amount that has already reached the equivalent of 1.5 percent of Romania’s gross domestic product. About half of this total is meant for teachers and professors in high school education. (...). If the 8 billion RON accumulated so far would are paid this year, the plan of cutting the budget deficit to 4.4 percent of the GDP would be ruined, so the only solution found by the Government was staggering the payments over the next three years.’

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