National Press Review, 25 August

In the Evenimentul Zilei we read today about who has something to gain from the
merging of the local and the parliamentary elections. The local elections will be
postponed for about six months and they will be held in the first half of November 2012,
at the same time with the parliamentary elections. This means that the mandates of the
local elected officials will be extended by six months by changing the law of the local
government and local elections.

Through this measure, the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) and the Democratic Alliance
of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) intend to buy time in order to make up for their lost
popularity. On the other hand, for the Social-Liberal Union (USL), postponing elections
means more days of opposition and this could lead to the erosion of the alliance by
enhancing the local frictions between the two parties. Finally, the USL gets a deal out of
spending its financial resources on a single campaign.

We change the topic but remain at the same newspaper, in which we read that the grading
system in the second exam of the fall session of the Baccalaureate, the assessment of
speaking skills in a lingua franca, caused great trouble to the candidates.

While the grading system of the first test was clear, now the grading is done with letters.
When asked about the grades they obtained, most looked confused. Some believe they
will receive grades as in the first test, others know they are called differently, but they did
not understand which is the highest grade.

The Adevărul writes on how Romanians kept dreams shops open, explaining that:
Romania ranked first among countries with sites selling ethnobotanical substances, along with Britain, Germany and the Netherlands. The vendors of hallucinogenic plants and substances moved their merchandise from kiosks to the Internet.

Although many ‘dreams shops’ have been closed, the herbal drugs can be found without
restrictions on various websites, and the number of minors who use legal drugs, due to
their access to the Internet, has increased significantly, according to the representatives of
the regional office of the National Anti-Drug Agency in Cluj.

The Adevărul also publishes today an exclusive interview with Jonathan Scheele,
former head of the EU Delegation in Bucharest. When asked how he saw Romania 5
years after the accession, Jonathan Scheele said that despite the economic crisis our
country was better than it had been five years ago, and that this could be seen in all areas.
He added that he had doubts about the administrative reform and that the crisis and the
nationalism in the European Union did not help Bucharest.

The Jurnalul Naţional writes about measures for promoting tourism in the capital. In September, the Ministry of Tourism will present at Bucharest City Hall a marketing plan
highlighting the main directions for promoting tourism.

Minister Elena Udrea recommends positioning Bucharest as a destination for young
people, to be known for animation, for its night life and for what happens in the
historic centre. Also, the tourists could be introduced to a circuit of the old forts around
Bucharest, and according to the minister, there are nearly 30 such landmarks.

From România Liberă we learn that 20,000 Romanians are infected with TB, and every
year there are 12,000 new cases. Romania is the leader in Europe in terms of the number
of people suffering from a disease which has actually been eradicated in most of the
neighbouring countries.

The journalists from the România Liberă tried to find the answer to the question how
this situation came to be with the help of specialists and NGOs. The conclusion: there is
no ‘cleaning’ done in the tuberculosis programme and the sanatoria are receiving fewer
and fewer funds.

Translated by: Iulia Florescu and Ruxandra Câmpeanu
MA Students, MTTLC, Bucharest University.