National Press Review, 30 May

How high the fiscal pressure pushes on Romanians’ shoulders, how dangerous the cucumbers imported from Spain are and critical reviews with regards to how the Romanian Government assisted the economy and what the Opposition is engaged to – these are the main topics in the newspapers of the beginning of the week.

‘We work for the State five months a year’, the opening headline in the Adevărul’s today edition reads.

Budget expenditures are up to over 40 percent of GDP, which means that the state spends the equivalent of almost 150 annual working days of the Romanian employees.

Or, otherwise said, for every one hundred lei they produce, the citizens remain with less than 60 lei, as the rest of the amount is spent by the state.

You can read about the money and how they’re being spent in the opening of the Jurnalul Naţional’s today edition: ‘How much money was made on the wild horses in the Danube Delta’.

The newspaper managed to find out about the amount of 200.000 euros which was allocated starting 2005 from the Government’s reserve fund in order to address the problem of the horses.

The money was allocated (‘wasted’ – the Jurnalul Naţional reads) on two useless fences and on ‘calls of informing and raising awareness’, an initiative whose efficiency is difficult to measure.

The România Liberă. While getting prepared to enter the Schengen Area, our country teaches police officers to catch criminals with computer help.

Romania’s accession to the Schengen Area brings Romanian policemen of every corner of the country closer to Europe by offering them free access to the data comprising all the criminal records on the continent.

Unfortunately, the poor signal and logistics prevent some of them from using the information.

The new account on the European data base does not help the Chief of Police from a commune in Piatra Neamț forget that he doesn’t own a duty car and there is no police station in the village neither, the România Liberă continues. The computer was placed in an improvised office, near the village pub.

The newspapers write today about the most recent concern of the continent: ‘the killer’ cucumbers from Spain.

The vegetables, contaminated with deadly bacteria – the Evenimentul Zilei writes, killed 10 people in Germany and sickened a few hundreds.

As far as we’re concerned – head of the Fruit and Vegetables Grower’s Association Mircea Croitoru mentions for the Adevărul – we are unable to do anything till the EU declares an official alert.

There is no need for us to take any measures – the Evenimentul Zilei reads – as Romania does not import cucumbers from Spain.

All political news in today’s newspapers is represented by the statements made by editorialists.

Mircea Marian from the Evenimentul Zilei believes that the economists of the Opposition, in the Economic Programme released by the Social Liberal Union (USL) are making efforts not to offend anyone, they’re making vague promises and also no substantial commitment is made, so they have nothing to be accused of later on.

The programme consists of populist measures –coordinating editor of the Adevărul Ovidiu Marincea writes – but the rough truth is that, nowadays, the entire political class in Romania suffers from impotence, as I am unable to trace any accomplishment of the Boc Government either, the journalist continues.

The promises we’ve heard two years ago, that there were money in the budget which would allow them to double workers’ salaries, that the economic crisis would not affect us, that we would have, among other things, 800 kilometres of highway and a complex and competent education system – all these promises turned out to be electoral lies.

Translated by: Mihaela Grigoraş
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University