National Press Review, 1 August

"Băsescu warns the governing coalition: no demagoguery!" – this is the headline chosen by the Evenimentul Zilei for the article on yesterday’s meeting between the Romanian President and the IMF mission in Romania.

The head of the state warned those politicians who had taken head start on the election campaign by announcing rises in pensions and salaries that their declarations were detrimental to Romania.

Although he stated that the measures implemented so far had proved fruitful and had brought economic stability, all the president could promise was that "a decrease in the number of taxes will be considered".

The Adevărul reads that the IMF has warned Romanian authorities that without investments, the Romanian economy will not grow.

The international creditors say that our country’s economic development depends on the
promotion of public investments and on an improvement in EU funds absorption.

"Limited joy on A2 motorway", according to the Adevărul, whose reporters have tested the
section of dual carriageway between Agigea and Murfatlar (21 km). Prime Minister Emil Boc and Anca Boagiu, head of the Ministry of Transports, gave the carriageway section a very ceremonious inauguration last week.

However, the quarter of an hour spared with the new carriageway section can hardly be deemed to make up for the time lost in the traffic jam between Cernavodă and Murfatlar.

That is how things are with the A2 motorway: begun thirty years ago, during the communist rule, it remains a mystery whether it shall ever be finished.

"The Danube Delta, from ‘green paradise’ to ‘orange hell’", the Jurnalul Naţional reads.

After five years of "struggle", the Parliament has finally managed to come up with a new law governing the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve.

The original law has been modified on the initiative of the Democratic Liberal Party (PD-
L) member Sulfina Barbu, Chairperson of the Chamber of Deputies Committee for Public
Administration.

The new law has many loopholes, on account of which the most important natural wetland in Europe will be destroyed, according to the Jurnalul Naţional. The daily is asking the president not to promulgate the law.

The Jurnalul Naţional explains: if up to now, the Scientific Council was in charge of the
administration of the Delta, from now on this task will devolve upon the governor, to be
appointed and removed from office by the Prime Minister.

Moreover, the new law divides the Delta into strictly protected areas, buffer areas and economic areas, and this, according to the daily, creates opportunities for the big shots to raise buildings using the available loopholes.

In an interview published in the România Liberă, a former Romanian Intelligence Service
(SRI) agent who used to work undercover reveals how his superiors would use him for personal purposes.

He recounts how he spied on businessman Dinu Patriciu and on journalist Sorin Roşca-Stănescu, but also on other people from Patriciu’s entourage.

The Jurnalul Naţional gives us the story of yet another brilliant youth.

When he was three years old, he already knew how to spell and now, 13-year-old Laurenţiu Ioan Ploscaru, from Călimăneşti, Vâlcea county, has more than 120 medals in nine different fields of activity.

He saves the small amount of money he receives as awards in competitions in order to afford transportation for the next contest.

This is because his parents are simple folk; sometimes they barely have enough money to keep them going from one day to the next.

His father is retired on medical grounds. His mother is a public servant and she has just lost her job.

Laurenţiu receives a monthly sponsorship worth RON 200 to cover his travel expenses to the best school in Vâlcea.

During the holidays, he can spend even eight hours a day solving math problems from scores of exercise books.

Unfortunately, his goal is to leave Romania.

"However beautiful this country may be, I think there’s no point in staying here... Has anybody done anything for pupils with good results?", the thirteen-year-old boy asks rhetorically.

Translated by: Ruxandra Câmpeanu

MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University