National Press Review, 26 August

Romanian authorities have counted in how many ways one can steal... European funds, which is one of the newest apparently legal methods of easy enrichment in our country. This and other topics from today’s newspapers, in the press review.

Rigged auctions, arrangements between companies, influence peddling, conflict of interest. The România Liberă publishes today ‘the dictionary of fraud with EU funds.’

The Ministry of Finance identified 16 ways of defrauding these funds, which are to be detected and punished by control teams. What the ministry does not specify, however, is how to prevent these frauds, so as to avoid spending money on detection. According to the România Liberă, the paving contracts are among those deals in which most frauds take place.

The Evenimentul Zilei opens today’s issue with an investigation entitled ‘Romanian Justice prepares another counter.’ The Superior Council of Magistracy continues to promote judges to the Supreme Court through interview, despite the magistrates’ opposition. The associations of magistrates - the Evenimentul Zilei explains – argue against promotion through interview, invoking the lack of transparency of this procedure.

The Jurnalul Naţional today allotted the page entitled “Special” to tomorrow’s 20th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Moldova. The president of the Romanian Foreign Policy Association, former Ambassador Aurel Preda, was interviewed on this topic.

Back then, he was in Chişinău and participated in drafting the document.

The Declaration was not written by ‘some foreigners from Bucharest’, as different voices on the other bank of the Prut argued - Aurel Preda said. He remembers the morning of August 27th 1991, when, in front of the government in Chişinău and in its surroundings, a million people enthusiastically saluted the document that was being presented to them.

Back to Bucharest: the upcoming 2012 elections already ‘arouse’ discussions, comments and predictions. I noted the straightforward opinion of the România Liberă columnist, Cristian Câmpeanu, who believes that Romanian democracy is not threatened by the merging of local and parliamentary elections or by the changes in the voting system.

Romanian democracy is killed by the party ‘nobles’, who stifle political legitimacy and sever the relationship with citizens, the party nobles of all colours, who control with a grip of steel the entire organization and power structure. The parties in our country – Cristian Câmpeanu added – are among the least democratic structures in Romania.


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