National Press Review, 14 April 2011

‘Emil Cioran’s papers’ are the common topic of today’s newspapers, because suspicions and complaints were raised on their sale, previous to the auction in Paris a few days ago.

‘Cioran’s Second Apocalypse’, the Jurnalul Naţional headlined.

Director Sorin Iliesiu, who earlier made ​​the film ‘Apocalypse after Cioran’ accused the famous philosopher’s sister-in-law, Eleonora Cioran, of ‘lack of morality and principles’.

In response, Eleonora Cioran argued that the director had no capacity to initiate an international investigation in this case.

The Adevărul: ‘How did Cioran grow from 36,000 to 406,000 euros?’

The paper stated that the Ministry of Culture has been aware for two years that Eleanor knew Cioran wanted to sell the writer's personal papers, but they did not make ​​any approach in order to achieve them.

In the Evenimentul Zilei, one of the French editors of the philosopher, the boss of a publishing house, recounted how she bought the manuscripts of Emil Cioran from the scholar’s family, thus dismissing the allegations of theft brought by Eleonora Cioran.

Also the Evenimentul Zilei published, by way of conclusion, the view of a researcher on the philosopher’s work: ‘This sad merchantability of the manuscripts is contrary to the spirit of Cioran.’

Other topics in the news of the day

The România Liberă consistently pursued the highways issue in our country and opened its edition with the article: ‘How to maneuver an auction of one billion euros.’

It was about the auction on more sections of the designed motorway from Nădlac to Sibiu.

Despite the budgetary constraints, the price criteria little mattered in designating the winners, wrote the newspaper: the Company of Motorways chose the offers for the nine sections so that the ones made by the Romanian kings of asphalt came out winning, while the cheapest ones didn’t.

The Adevărul, in the two-page ‘Special’ column: ‘Political transits champions.’

Not more than 58 of the current parliament members (meaning more than 10 percent of their total) shifted at least once from one party to another.

The champion was a deputy that has swapped its party for at least six times.

The newspaper noted at the end of an analysis with examples, comparisons and statements that the Constitution does not allow the punishment of political migration at the parliamentary level.

We conclude by the România Liberă which published the X-ray of what the newspaper called ‘one of the most spectacular businesses on public money: avian flu scam.’

When the hysteria began 6 years ago, the National Road Company and the Romanian Railroads Company started to contract disinfection services (the famous filters on roads and railway stations) although, the NAD prosecutors showed, they had not been meant to do so.

Hence contracts over contracts, out of order, with smart companies as final beneficiaries, which made no disinfection, but a total fraud of 6 million euros of the state money, the România Liberă concluded.

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