National Press Review, 23 August

The local elections held on Sunday in Maramureş and Neamţ, the autumn session of the Baccalaureate and the cause of the fire in the Delta – are some of the topics discussed in today's newspapers.

The Social-Liberal Union (USL) – a failure and a half – the Evenimentul Zilei headlines today explaining that the first electoral confrontation as a test for the 2012 election was lost by the alliance between the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Conservative Party (PC).

For USL, an alliance claiming to have – according to its own polls – a quota of 70% not only nationally, but in each of Romania’s counties, the elections results on Sunday were below expectations.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL), the ruling party credited in polls with 17-20%, was preferred in the counties of Maramureş and Neamţ by over 40% of those who came to vote.

The topic was also covered by the Adevărul: the opposition denounced the electoral tourism on election day.

The Liberals made public the registration numbers of eight buses that were said to have circulated through the villages in Neamţ, while the Social Democrats stated that besides the campaign chief of the PDL candidate for the college in Neamţ County, Gheorghe Ştefan nicknamed ‘Pinalti’, MP Culiţă Tărâţă might have also been involved in the operations.

Back to the Evenimentul Zilei, where we read that the schoolchildren who sat for the Romanian language skills exam within the Baccalaureate yesterday boasted that they hadn’t studied at all but got good grades anyway.

The candidates interviewed by the Evenimentul Zilei journalists said that the Romanian language oral test had not been difficult.

‘I went into the classroom, I drew a topic, I wrote five minutes on the sheet of paper, and when my turn came, I improvised a little and I was rated “experienced user”’, a laid-back candidate told the journalists from Evenimentul Zilei.

Romanians who have more than one house or own cars with powerful engines could continue to pay increased local taxes, according to their number and cylinder capacity, over the next years as well, due to a draft amendment and completion of the Tax Code – the Adevărul writes.

Initially, this measure - introduced on July 1st 2010 – should have been applied only for a year and a half – in other words, only until December 31st 2011.

The Tax Code will be changed again by a decree currently under discussion at the Finance Ministry and the largest changes concern estate.

The same newspaper reads that petrol and diesel prices have begun to decline during the past weeks, following the depreciation of crude oil quotes, which reached the same levels as last fall.

The oil companies expect oil prices not to rise anymore this year and to even go down slightly, which would bring new cheaper prices at the pump.

The Health Insurance House wants an IT programme to manage all Romanian patients’ data – we read in the România Liberă – and will schedule this fall a new auction for the computerization of the Romanian medical system.

Basically, any visit that a patient pays within the Romanian medical system, including to pharmacies, will be recorded in this system.

The main players in the IT industry said that there are already ‘subscribers’ to this contract worth EUR 40 million.

The Jurnalul Naţional writes that the Delta fire was caused by a cigarette.

The experts from the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations in Dobrogea determined that the fire in Vadu, whose aftermath was 300 burnt hectares of reed and dry vegetation of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, was caused by a lit cigarette thrown at random, after which the fire spread rapidly because of strong winds.

So far, the damage proportions have not been estimated.

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