Financial Press Review, 8 June

The Ziarul Financiar opens with the conclusions of yesterday’s conference on monetary policy that NBR Governor also attended.

Just like in the beginning of the 90’s, many state-owned companies generate ‘fake money’ by piling up debt, Mugur Isărescu explained. State companies’ arrears are implicit subsidies that can overthrow any NBR calculation. The inflation reached 8.3 percent per year in April.

‘Over 58 percent of the debt to state budgets is generated by companies where the state is a majority shareholder’, the Bursa reads, quoting a study by Lucian Croitoru, NBR Governor’s consultant.

‘Who is still hiring?’, the Curierul Naţional reads on the first page. ‘There are more vacancies than in 2010. Most available positions are in information technology (especially programming), accounting and finance, acquisitions-logistics-supply.

‘Some companies are looking for inexperienced employees with low salary claims, others want specialists’. A Ziarul Financiar heading reads: ‘Government Releases New Bomb: No More Counties, Transition to Regions. Why the Rush?’

‘Government sources – the daily reads – claim that the Government might hand in such a bill this week, but no one has seen it and it has not been subjected to public debate for 30 days, as states the law on transparency in the decision-making process’.

Moreover, a major change like this one demands a broader dialogue, with all the implications presented (studies, the impact of territory reorganization and long-term consequences). Are there such studies?’ the Ziarul Financiar wonders. ‘If so, nobody except those that carried them out has seen them’.

The Curierul Naţional prints an article entitled ‘Romania’s and Bulgaria’s Schengen Bid Voted in EP’. Today’s vote at the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs from the European Parliament is not definitive, the article shows. The final decision is to be taken by the European Council by unanimous vote of the EU member states.

President Traian Băsescu expressed his hope that Romania and Bulgaria’s bid for the Schengen Area will be accepted by the end of this year, the daily reads. The newspaper also reveals that ‘Brussels diplomats warned that several member states link adhesion to the Schengen Area to judicial reforms broader than mere border control’.

‘Many member states complained that, after joining the EU, Romania and Bulgaria did not do enough to eradicate corruption or reform the judicial system’, the daily quotes the Financial Times.

22 magazine prints an article entitled ‘Time-out for Biggest Corruption Files’ signed Dan Tapalagă.

‘Romania is in desperate need of quick and efficient measures, radical changes in legislation and institutional behavior in justice. Otherwise, the rate of prescribed corruption files will accelerate’, Dan Tapalagă claims in 22 magazine.

Translated by: Gabriela Lungu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University