National Press Review, 19 August

The Romanian president wants the founding of the United States of Europe, the Roşia Montană project has been approved by Cotroceni and instalments and taxes will be paid at the bank counters without any other charges – these are some of the topics that you can read about in today’s newspapers.

Traian Băsescu wants the founding of the United States of Europe – the Evenimentul Zilei headlined today explaining that, according to the President, the EU has been exceeded economically by China and the United States over the last decade, and for this reason a decision should be taken ‘fast’.

‘We, as Europeans, need economic performance, we need security and these two fundamental elements can be obtained ​​only through fundamental political decisions,’ the head of the state declared.

In the Adevărul we read that ‘the Roşia Montană project was approved by Cotroceni.’

President Traian Băsescu is a supporter of this project because the price of gold has risen a lot lately and the profits would be huge.

He highlighted that it should be done provided that sharing the profits was renegotiated.

However, a renegotiation is not possible for now because the project is currently in the stage of obtaining the environmental permit, Sorin Mihai Găman, the head of the Mineral Resources Department within the Ministry of Economy, stated for the Adevărul.

According to the President, the Roşia Montană project cannot be started without the approval of the European Commission.

The same newspaper published an exclusive interview with former Prime Minister Adrian Năstase, who claims to have information that the President will begin in September to ‘hunt down’ Opposition leaders.

He said he believed that the moment the case Vîntu was reopened, it launched various political ramifications, and all these things will be relaunched in September, as attacks against members of the Opposition.

The members of the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) and of the National Union for the Progress of Romania (UNPR) are kept busy with these files and the recruitment is done by UNPR, Adraian Năstase added.

The Jurnalul Naţional reads that the citizens will be able to pay consular fees, taxes on buildings, land and automobiles at the bank without additional charges.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the citizens will be able to pay all these fees also via the Internet or mobile phone.

So far the system is operational for one bank only, but as from next month, others will enter the system as well. As for paying the taxes online, the portal allowing this works only partially.

The România Liberă reads that scientists found that most of the genes that were thought to be unnecessary were actually involved in causing cancer.

Until recently, most sections of DNA were considered to be useless – that is, a component without any important role in causing cancer.

Today, it is called noncoding DNA and scientists said that the pseudogenes of this uncertain area could be playing some role in causing cancer.

Only about 2% of the human genome was considered functional, meaning capable to produce enzymes and proteins.


Translated by: Iulia Florescu and Ruxandra Câmpeanu
MA Students, MTTLC, Bucharest University.