National Press Review, 18 January

In the România Liberă: "Arafat is returning to the Ministry of Health. Who stands to lose" a declared opponent of the privatization of the emergency medical system, Raed Arafat states that he has not changed his opinion.

His comeback spoils the plans of the companies who wanted to expand their activity into the field of emergency medicine, after they have invested millions of Euros in ambulance equipment.

The Evenimentul Zilei presents the view of a French doctor of Romanian descent, who has done groundbreaking work in spinal surgery and has experienced both the Western and the local systems, stating: "Start supporting the competition between state and private hospitals!"

The money should be divided equally between the state and private sectors, depending on the case.

Since fees could no longer be increased and the amount of money would remain unchanged, competition might improve hospital conditions, where, in some instances, between eight and ten people are crowded into the same room.

Under the headline "How could the street crisis be defused with political means?", the Adevărul analyses a few options.

The response of the governing politicians has been incoherent: the president has not appeared in public yet, and the Prime Minister Emil Boc has only provided the solution of reinstating Arafat at the Ministry of Health.

The other solutions described in the newspaper have, so far, been suggested solely by the opposition, and by the dissatisfied members of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Almost all of them depend on the power balance in the legislative department, where the governing Members of the Parliament clearly own the
majority.

In the Jurnalul Naţional, over ten pages are dedicated to the country-wide protest, under the headline: "Hit them where it hurts!"

"Seven years ago, when Traian Băsescu won the elections with this message. Now, the governing Members of the Parliament are making cuts in the voters' [...] most vulnerable areas: wages, pensions, taxes.

"And, more recently, the voters got it in the neck [...] The endless series of blunders committed by the governing politicians, the bad governing strategies and the consequences of the economic crises have been the perfect ingredients for an explosive cocktail", the journalists write.

The publication presents a series of incidents which took place during the protests, as well as an interview with the leader of Pro Democraţia, Cristian Pârvulescu.

The Ziarul Financiar reminds us that the due date is approaching: "In 2012 Romania starts paying the record loan to IMF. Can the state afford it?"

The amount of money which Romania has to give back to IMF is worth 1.9 billion Euros.

How will the Treasury come up with this money?

If the authorities fail to attract more European funding and foreign investments will continue to crash, the situation will become more complicated.

The extreme solution is tapping into the FMI funding in the stand-by agreement.

Translated by: Cristina Baciu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University