Romanian press review

The opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD) will present to a joint sitting of Parliament on Wednesday the request for the impeachment of President Traian Basescu; the European Commission approved the Operational Regional Programme; the Chamber of Deputies passed an ordinance on the setting up of the European Affairs Department; the Romanian president and prime minister attended a meeting reviewing the 2006 results scored by the Administration and Interior Ministry – these are the main topics covered by the Romanian dailies on Wednesday.

The leaderships of the two houses of Parliament reconfirmed on Tuesday the order in which the legislature’s plenary sitting will discuss the two proposals for holding a referendum as follows: the president’s impeachment on Wednesday and the uninominal vote on Thursday, Romania libera reports in an item headlined ‘The parliamentarians discuss the president’s impeachment today’.

‘The parliamentarians of the PSD, Greater Romania Party and Conservative Party do not want to abandon the moves meant to suspend President Traian Basescu and they decided that the 30 charges be debated today ahead of discussing the president’s request to hold a referendum on the uninominal vote’, the paper adds.

According to the schedule set by Parliament’s leadership, early on Wednesday the senators and deputies will be notified of the request for Basescu’s impeachment signed by 182 MPs as well as the 30 ’serious deviations’ the opposition says it has found in the president’s activity.

‘In case the setting up of an inquiry commission is neither proposed nor approved, Parliament would then vote on whether the proposal for the president’s impeachment is to be sent to the constitutional court’, Romania libera explains.

In an article headlined ‘A parliamentary inquiry commission is being prepared for Basescu’, Ziarul financiar announces the Romanian leader will not attend the legislative body’s sitting on Wednesday discussing his impeachment; he had notified the MPs in a letter that he doesn’t deem his presence necessary. ‘I believe that all the actions and statements I have made since the beginning of my tenure as Romania’s President are in line with the Constitution’, Basescu added.

The Conservative Party, a supporter of the Social Democrats’ move to suspend the Basescu, will propose at Wednesday’s sitting the setting up of a parliamentary commission to inquire into the acts the president is guilty of, Conservative leader Dan Voiculescu announced on Tuesday. The proposal stands big chances of being adopted, since it is also backed by the PSD and the ruling National Liberal Party.

The European executive will approve the Operational Regional Programme at the end of May, but it has agreed that Romania already begin the proceedings for the handing over of projects, Bursa writes in reference to a statement made by European Integration Minister Anca Boagiu. ‘The European Commission agrees with the idea that the projects begin before the Programme is officially approved by the European executive, so that the contracting rate of the structural funds may be as high as possible’, said Boagiu, who met European Commissioner on Regional Policy Danuta Huebner in Brussels on Tuesday.

The Chamber of Deputies passed on Tuesday an Ordinance on setting up an European Affairs Department as a structure belonging to the Government’s working apparatus, to be responsible for the national coordination of the European affairs, Ziarul financiar reports in an item entitled ‘The deputies approve the department for European affairs’.

The Government decided at the end of last year to set up the department by the merger of the Standing Secretariat for European Affairs – a structure within the Premier’s Chancellery – and two directorates in the European Integration Ministry.

President Traian Basescu did not miss the opportunity on Tuesday to slam the corruption in the administration again, reports Romania libera in an article called ‘President Basescu is unhappy with the corruption in the state institutions’ in which it reports that both the President and Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu attended the meeting reviewing the 2006 results scored by the Administration and Interior Ministry.

Ziarul financiar adds that Basescu slammed the corruption in the energy system and demanded the institutions to tackle the issues in this area, in the public works and the health system acquisitions. ‘The fight against corruption is a complex system and it is not confined to the Interior Ministry alone. I would like my concern to become your concern as well (…) since the state still does not function influence-free’, he said.

Tariceanu required the Administration Ministry’s leaders to get more firmly involved in combating the organised crime groups, stressing that the number of criminals who left Romania in order to avoid punishment – like Omar Hayssam – is high, namely there are more than 3,500 persons who have perpetrated various crimes and left Romania over the last period.

The PSD Bucharest branch elects a new head in a tense atmosphere on Wednesday, Adevarul reports. There are six contestants for the post, with the most well-known being District 5 mayor Marian Vanghelie and Social Democratic Youth president Robert Negoita. Social Democrat chairman Mircea Geoana, party founder and senior leader Ion Iliescu and secretary-general Titus Corlatean met the Bucharest district branches’ leaders and the six candidates, in an attempt to calm things down. ROMPRES