National Press Review, 9 May

The companies have raised debts even under the IMF scrutiny, the Evenimentul Zilei wrote today explaining that even if they had been monitored by the International Monetary Fund, state companies have ‘succeeded’ in increasing their state debts by nearly one billion lei.

Since the beginning of the year, the IMF have extended the list of the monitored ones from 10 to 18, after the representatives of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (NAFA) stated that in 2010 their debt increased by one third.

The journalists of the Evenimentul Zilei wrote that the NAFA data show that on 31 March, only the accumulated debts to the state budget in 11 of the 18 companies under the IMF monitoring have increased by 26.6 percent compared to the level reported last year.

The same newspapers also informed us that the free in-vitro fertilization program has entered its last minute. Between 23 and 27 May, the health care facilities interested in joining the Program may submit their records at the Registry of the Ministry of Health.

The private hospitals are also accepted. To enter the program, the institutions concerned must be accredited for user activity in human cells and tissues for therapeutic purposes, to prove that from January 1, 2010 they made at least 50 of such procedures and that they have trained specialists in the field of human embryology. The list of the accepted units in the program will be published on 1 June.

Also the Evenimentul Zilei published an exclusive interview with Stelian Negrea, a former journalist of the Intact Trust, revealing which politicians were protected and who could be attacked on the television stations of the Intact Trust controlled by the Dan Voiculescu.

‘12 percent more expensive food by July’, the Adevărul wrote, detailing that the prices of processed food products will grow in the next 2-3 months by up to 10-12percemt, said president of Rom - alimenta, Sorin Minea. He stated that ‘the price of meat already increased by about 20 percent this year.’ According to Minea, we can only speak of generalized price increases only in some of the products.

In the same newspaper we read that Necolaiciuc repaired the railways with detergents. The former CFR manager Mihai Necolaiciuc will be held accountable in a file in which he was charged with a loss of over six million euros. He might have purchased carpet cleaning gels at exorbitant prices, calendars or fridges and he might have allowed the redevelopment of a restaurant.

‘More money from the European Union’, the România Liberă headlined. Romanian farmers should receive more money from the EU in 2014, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Dacian Ciolos, said. The Union’s new common agricultural policy will bring more funds to the small and medium farm owners but also for the Eastern European states that have recently joined the EU.

Also the România Liberă wrote that the Baia Mare elections were held under the sign of electoral bribery. The CVs of the candidates did not convince even a quarter of voters to go to the polls. Seven candidates disputed the options of the voters for the mayor position, left empty by the former mayor Cristian Anghel, who has been sentenced to prison for abuse of office. The candidates have accused each other of electoral bribery, but despite the ‘evidence’ that some of them claimed they had, the municipal police did not operate any restraint.

Translated by: Iulia Florescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University