National Press Review, 9 March

Price increases are ranged in column on the first page of the daily Gândul.

"Fuel will be more expensive. Boc blames Năstase. The forecast made by Videanu", is the headline of the article revealing that fuel price increase – 3.5 percent – recorded at the beginning of the year has been passed from side to side.

The Gândul brings out that gas costs six lei per 1.76 pints.

According to the Prime Minister, Emil Boc, "this means not having under control country's oil reserves" while oil companies blame the increase of barrel of oil price.

The former Minister of Economy, Adriean Videanu, warns that, this summer, price boosts on international markets could influence Romania directly and requests the
Competition Board to take into account uncompetitive practices in the respective field.

"It irritates me because I don"t know if there is any economic reason behind the boosts", adds the liberal democrat MP, Sever Voinescu, who seems to be enlightened about the explanation given by Adrian Vasilescu, National Bank of Romania governor's advisor, "It is annoying. Companies want to see how much they can increase prices without losing too many oil customers".

The Gândul adds that rates of Euro credits could increase with about ten per cent before the end of the year.

On the one hand, economic experts expect for the Euribor index, which banks use for calculating the rates, to double but on the other hand, they ensure, "the shock won't be that strong because the increase of interest value will not be made immediately but gradually".

The România Liberă found out how employers considered the new labor law that yesterday, the Government declared himself responsible for.

Journalists have interviewed three experts in the field, who are either managers or human resources experts, and all of them believed that the changes regarding the Romanian Labor Code would be useful and mentioned that there are also forecasts that would help to put many interpretations and that could be exploited by some employers.

In this respect, there is one example relating to the objective evaluation criteria which are not explained at all.

According to those interviewed by the România Liberă the advantages would be: labor productivity growth, flexibility in negotiations between employee and employer or companies' possibility to hire only for a project based period.

As for Government's promise of granting new jobs, one of the experts asserted, "this will be possible if there is a better communication between the Government and employers and only if Romanians become more optimistic".

Today, the Evenimentul Zilei has analyzed a disaster and revealed those who dried up the European granary.

As a consequence, between the responsible people are agricultural ministers who, according to a report made by the Court of Auditors, determined the destruction of the Romania"s irrigation system.

Among them we can count Mr. Ilie Sărbu, Mr. Ioan Avram Mureşan, Mr. Gheorghe Flutur or Mr. Decebal Traian Remeş.

The same daily quotes a survey conducted by the European experts and adds that the consequences of bad decisions, of broken or partially applied laws are the following: lands in ten counties will be barren for the next twenty years and grain production will decrease with forty per cent.

To sum up, the Jurnalul Naţional draws the map of the subway in Bucharest, a project for 2020. So, for the building of the subway that will link the airports with railway stations will be allotted a 320 million euros loan, a sum of money granted for building three new railroads.

Watch out, doors close! There will be sixty nine new subway stations!


Translated by: Cristina Anamaria Maricescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University