National Press Review, 30 January

The România Liberă writes about the excuses of the authorities for failing to complete the snow removal operations.

‘The contracts with the asphalt paving companies are stipulated only for normal winter conditions.’ The companies are not obliged to intervene during blizzard. Moreover, the vehicles used to remove the snow off the roads are similar to those used for paving highways in summer, but with different accessories.

In the Ziarul Financiar ‘IMF becomes pessimistic and is ready to trim the economic increase forecast by 1.3 percent this year’. The World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development have already worsened the forecast. Will a new budget have to be drawn up, under these conditions,? We shall see with what kind of solutions the experts will come up on their visit to Bucharest in order to encourage the economic growth.

The Jurnalul Națtional believes that ‘UDMR, the hinge on which the party in power swings, is about to fall’. The UDMR leaders have signalled USL that they can shift the balance again, this time in favour of the Opposition. Even if it has not been done on behalf of the Union, Deputy mayor Marko Bella and UDMR Vice president László Borbély have expressed their approval of holding early elections.

In the Evenimentul Zilei we read about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: ‘Only one thief and officers search 100 innocents. It is almost utopian what they want to do: private police that keeps track of you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.’ The newspaper publishes an interview on the subject with Varujan Pambuccian, who makes a comparison between ACTA and ‘the pretext of fighting against terrorism’.

In the end, the Cronica Română publishes an article about the German government’s proposal that Athens should give up the sovereignty of its budget for failing to meet the financial requirements established by IMF and EU. According to analysts, it would be an attempt to test the public reaction and create a precedent. If Athens turns down the proposal, Berlin will have the perfect excuse to stop fiving money to Greece. The Cronica says that Romania might face Greece’s problem because we will urgently need external help if the international context gets worse.

Translated by: Cătălina Virvescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University