National Press Review, November 12

The Gândul publishes the exclusive conclusions of a secret report compiled by the World Bank.

According to the newspaper, the WB ‘wants to change Romania’, which was described in the report as ‘the country with a budget that lacks credibility and serves political interests, and a Ministry of Finance that has more employees than the English Ministry does.’ The WB puts forward solutions to each and every problem.

The Gândul reads: ‘Boc and Boagiu cut the ribbon for another 10 highway kilometers. So far, 52 kilometers have been built. 363 to go!’ The director of Bechtel, the company that is responsible with the construction of the Transylvanian Highway, stated that the Government has a debt of over 90 million euros to the company for the work that has been done this year.

The construction work began in 2004, and was interrupted in the middle of the year 2005, when the contract concluded by the former government was reanalyzed.

Due to the interruption of the work construction, the deadline for the highway’s construction, initially set for 2012, was extended for another year.

The Adevărul presents another episode from the County Hospital in Galaţi tragedy, under the headline ‘The hospital that sends its patients home to die.’

The situation is about to become desperate: on Wednesday the administration board of the medical unit announced that the money from the budget had run out, and yesterday morning the hospital refused to admit certain patients.

Medical care is being given only to patients with urgent health problems whereas patients with chronic problems are being sent home.

The Evenimentul Zilei puts forward 10 solutions to help the medical system exit the crisis.

Priorities: the doctors’ salaries must be incresed 5 times, and the health insurance contributions 4 times.

Health Minister Cseke Attila considers that the introduction of the health care co-payment system will partially solve the problem of the lack of funds in the system.

According to the newspaper, the negotiations between the trade unions and the Ministry of Labor revealed that 7% of the present civil servants, namely 80,000 employees, would be laid off in 2011.

The Government will no longer ‘subsidize’ the technical unemployment in 2011 and there will not be enough money to extend the unemployment benefit.

The România Liberă reads that following the complaint filed by 6 civil servants working at the Voineasa Town Hall, the Vâlcea Court decided that the 25 % salary cut violates the human rights and forced the government to give the money back to the public employees involved in the case.

The Jurnalul Naţional reads that ‘the owners of buildings will be forced by law to rehabilitate the exterior of the buildings,’ – a provision included in the draft which Minister of Regional Development and Tourism Elena Udrea will be presenting during the government session next week.

The Minister is discontent with the pace of the thermal rehabilitation of the block of flats and states that if the thermal rehabilitation works continue to be carried out as it have been so far, ‘they will be finished in 100 years.’

She added that local public authorities could rehabilitate private buildings on their expense, and later recuperate the money from the owners of the buildings, even by enforcing the law if necessary.

The Jurnalul Naţional reads: ‘The Government is buried in debts,’ due to 21 billion euros, the total value of the applications for compensation for the buildings confiscated under the communist regime.

‘The clock is ticking fast for the Boc Government, taking into account that the European Court of Human Rights asked Romania to solve the problem of the compensation applications within the next 18 months and the present mechanisms are not functioning properly.

'It is highly unlikely for this entire sum of money to be recognized in court, but for the authorities it is crystal clear that the total value of the compensation applications will exceed the budget allocated to the Property Fund.’


Translated by: Raluca Mizdrea
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University