National Press review, 25 March

Today’s newspapers write about the flagrant that caused anti-corruption prosecutors to organize a flagrant and detain the leader of an important trade union.

‘Marius Petcu – queen of the flagrant’ – headlines the România Liberă.

After hundreds of customs officers were arrested for taking bribe, a chief union trade leader did not bother to stop taking bribes – the newspaper notes.

The leader of the National Confederation of Free Trade Unions in Romania – FRATIA is being accused of taking bribe in several tranches from a business man.

‘Trade union leader caught in flagrant’ – is the title in the Adevărul.

Marius Petcu had asked a business man for 200,000 euros to facilitate obtaining several construction and restoration works for several business quarters, in his quality of member of the Administration Council of the SIND Society.

SIND Romania owns the patrimony of the former General Trade Union Confederation of Romania in the communist period.

On the same topic, the Gândul reminds that the National Integrity Agency informed last month that 15 trade union leaders are targeted in the institution’s verifications.

Among them, Marius Petcu, one of the richest trade union leaders.

The Jurnalul Naţional opens today with the Retezat Mountains and the ‘Big River’, where villas have sprung up like mushrooms.

Police officers, judges and politicians – all have been dreaming since they were little to have a holiday villa in the mountains to escape the stress they are subjected to in their everyday life.

When they became great decision-makers, they started to fulfill their dream in the Retezat Mountains.

Which wouldn’t have been an issue at all if the villas hadn’t been built directly in the major bed of the ‘Big River’.

The Jurnalul Naţional is trying to elucidate in today’s issue who gave the authorizations; the questioned institutions ( City Hall, Romanian Waters ) state that they know how things are, but they were not the ones who actually approved the constructions.

Other subjects in today’s news.

The Gândul asserts that high prices of fuel have led to changing Romanians’ cars preferences: consumption became the number one criterion for buying, and the România Liberă publishes the analysis entitled ‘Why aren’t complex surgeries made in private clinics?’

Most private hospitals in Romania avoid difficult cases, because they don’t have the necessary logistics and they don’t want to ruin their public image either, in case of failure.

This is how – the România Liberă adds- that our private health care system, with few exceptions, developed in areas such as gynecology, ophthalmology and dentistry.

Most complex interventions such as heart or brain surgery, are still made, at least for the time being, in the public system.

Translated by: Manuela Stancu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University