Editorial Press Review, November 11

The main topic of today’s editorials is the moratorium proposed by president Traian Băsescu in Parliament. The president’s initiative, as well as the attitude of the Government and Opposition are criticized by the commentator journalists.

Nothing is more pathetic than the spectacle offered by the Government and Opposition which pull Roberta Anastase’s political corpse from all sides – writes Liliana Ruse in Gândul.

PSD (the Democratic Social Party) and PNL (the Liberal National Party) want to quench their thirst for the government’s blood, after they failed in suspending Traian Băsescu and dismissing the Boc Government.

PDL disguises its debility by nailing Anastase with her heels in the Lower House’s floor. And over all the scandal from the past two months, Băsescu’s call for a limited moratorium between the Government and Opposition, was regarded and treated as a sample of black humour.

Liliane Ruse mentiones the liberal leader Crin Antonescu’s call ‘to end the war’, and concludes: both Băsescu and Antonescu know that peace is reached either when the combatants run out of resources or when they understand that they are fighting an useless war.

The Romanian politicians do not find themselves in any of the cases. They make each other truce offers with cudgels hidden at their backs. They love peace but they do not want it.

For Jurnalul Naţional’s columnist, Radu Tudor, the president’s surprising proposal to establish a 30-45 days moratorium in the Parliament for the adoption of laws is an open invitation to encourage the offender.

What happened on the night of 15 September when the Pension Act was voted is a series of crimes that have not been sanctioned so far. Roberta Anastase and Sever Voinescu supported then the sinister vote.

In my opinion – adds Radu Tudor – the black night of September 15 can under no circumstances be forgotten. If there is a minimal legality and a tiny trace of respect for the present and the future, those who stole it, must pay. Both criminally and politically.

Also in the same context, the PSD leader Victor Ponta is criticized in the article written by Sabina Fati in România Liberă.

Victor Ponta does not want a moratorium on the reform of the pensions’ system or of the civil servants’ salaries, but a moratorium for the past which would rehabilitate all former collaborationists.

Victor Ponta returns to the hard line drawn in the 90s and would even agree with a new turbulent phase to shake the government as it happened during the first right-wing government of 1996-2000, because PSD does not wish to make a democratic opposition.

Victor Ponta relies on the parliamentary strike just like Ion Iliescu did ten years ago, and the 50 years difference between them is just unnoticeable.

The harmony of ideas between Ponta and Iliescu – adds Sabina Fati – designs a dramatic landscape for the current left-wing party, because it proves that the young PSD generation takes after the communists recycled in the school of transition and miner riots.


Translated by: Iulia Florescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University