Thursday, June 14, 2007

What the newspapers say: June 15, 2007


Upside down Friday: nothing is what it seems. Freedom House still finds corruption on high levels in Romania, while the Hungarian government accuses Romania for prosecuting ministers.

After an incident a while ago, Foreign Minister Cioroianu manages to meet Condoleezza Rice. After an embarrassing dialogue formed exclusively with "Yes. Of course. Yes. Yes, Yes", Cioroianu announces that Romania may sent more troops to Afghanistan. Newspapers find out to late to write about it.

The fact that a Hungarian Minority Democratic Union (UDMR) minister is suspended, since he's under criminal investigation, gives the Hungarian Govt. reason to claim that the criminal files are "politically dictated".

Four other UDMR members are also under investigation, a lot less than the number of Liberals, Democrats and Social Democrats (including the former PM Adrian Nastase), but that doesn't seem to matter in the scandal about to burst.

After some hesitations, the Romanian Foreign Ministry managed to "softly" answer the accusations, appreciating that "such remarks are unusual in the diplomatic practice". The press release shows that "as in all democratic states, the juridical procedures in criminal matters can not be subject to public evaluation before their ending". (Evenimentul Zilei)
(For more on this subject see: Romanian President suspends Communication minister Zsolt Nagy)

Speaking of criminal files opened for corruption: the latest Freedom House report decides that corruption continues to be a problem in Romania. The general score for Romania improved from 4.25 to 4, while the Justice scored 3.75 (from 4), given the efforts to fight corruption, which "seem to be more efficient", Jurnalul National reads.

In fact, the Justice acts so well it has become a bit annoying for prime minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, who complained to the EC head, Jose Manuel Barroso, that he has to find out from the media which of his ministers is formally indicted and for what, Cotidianul reads.

Still in the foreign affairs field: Foreign Minister Adrian Cioroianu is about to fall into disgrace after the meeting he had with the US State Secretary, Condoleezza Rice.
„Yes“, „yes, yes, that’s clear“, „of course“ and „thank you very much“ were the only words he said during the press conference before the meeting. "Cioroianu was excellent in approving whatever Rice said", Cotidianul comments.

The same newspaper published in its online version a piece of late night news that may cause serious discussions on Friday: "Romania may send more troops to Afghanistan", said Cioroianu, according to AFP.

Still, for some good news: the British demand more jobs for Romanians and Bulgarians, after two years of intense bad media (the "immigration waves" The Sun kept talking about) that caused panic among citizens.

During the first quarter of the year, only some 8,000 Romanians and Bulgarians demanded the right to work in the UK, and only 2,425 in agriculture. Now the crops are about to be lost, in case UK doesn't find soon some workers for the harvest, Evenimentul Zilei reads.
Agriculture associations now demand the Government to have a "more relaxed policy" on Romanian and Bulgarian workers.

As we said before: nothing is what it seems.

HotNews.ro, Jun 15, 2007

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