What the newspapers say: February 24, 2011 

​Romania is on the verge of a European sanction as protected areas became targets for real estate investors. Gas stations will increase their prices again in several days and PM Boc continues his fight against their price increases. According to a survey 51% of Romanians want to keep Boc as PM.

Evenimentul Zilei reads that Romania is on the verge of a European sanction as protected areas are targeted by real estates investors. Romania is in trial with EC officials for breaching a directive on birds in protected areas and Romanian Parliamentarians prepare a modification of the law, that would allow investors to build in the protected areas.

Parliamentary sources claim that the initiative came from the Democratic Liberal camp at the pressure of some investors.The amendments in the project include among others the possibility to undertake constructions or investments with the approval of the managers of protected areas for each objective according to the local urban plans.

In 2009 the European Commission took measures against Poland and Bulgaria for similar normative acts. Even though many parliamentarians claim that they will vote against the modification, ecologists fear that this will not happen and a dangerous precedent will be created.

Romania is the country with the richest biodiversity in the European Union, experts claim.

Elsewhere in the news, Gandul reads that gas stations will increase prices again in a few days, despite the Prime Minister’s plans to cut prices. The newspaper reads that the Prime Minister requested a new analysis on the gasoline market dissatisfied for receiving only general information, official sources declared for news agency Mediafax.

The newspaper reads that gasoline prices will increase in a few days just a few days after the price increased again to 5.45 lei/liter. This time, the cause of the increase is certain: Romanians will pay more because of the conflicts in North of Africa and Middle East that caused the oil prices to increase to record levels.

More than half of the Romanians want to maintain Emil Boc as Prime Minister, the conclusion of a study conducted by Social Democratic Party ex-minister Vasile Dancu reads, quoted by Romania libera.

The objective of the study was to evaluate the public agenda for February. 84% of Romanians heard about the talks between the President and the governing political parties regarding a possible change of the Prime Minister and 51% of the interviewees do not agree with the move while 47% agree.

Of those who welcome change, most would want governor Mugur Isarescu as Prime Minister. Only 9% would like to see PSD leader Ponta Prime Minister and 6% would choose Sibiu’s mayor Klaus Iohannis.