What the newspapers say: February 11, 2011

In the last three years, Romania lost annually from the budget somewhere from 500 to 1 billion euro because of the illegal cigarettes smuggling. In politics, National Fiscal Administration chief Blejnar accuses PSD leader Victor Ponta of receiving hundreds of thousands of euro in donations which he did not declare. Liberal leader Antonescu announces their plans to submit a motion of censure against the government in mid March.

Each day, a truck full of counterfeit cigarettes enters Romania and just one every month is discovered, Romania libera reads. The massive raids and arrests in the last weeks are spectacular but insignificant to the smuggling phenomenon in Romania. Cigarettes producers in Romania are even worried because the real traffic is not that small and because a series of legislative modifications threaten to create new smuggling networks.

So far, the inefficiency of authorities who only track down the thirstiest part of the total merchandise smuggled made a hole in the budget of 1 billion euro/year. ANAF announced for the first three quarters of last year a capture of 132 million cigarettes but these mean 6.6 million packs.

In one truck 600,000 packs of cigarettes can fit which results that authorities managed to capture a little over a truck/month.

Nationa Fiscal Administration, ANAF, chief Sorin Blejnar declared that the Social Democratic Party President Victor Ponta received several hundreds of thousands of euro in donations from Colina Motors company which he did not declare, Gandul reports. Blejnar said the information is available on the internet and that Ponta drove a rally car of the same company that costs at least 300,000 euro.

At his turn, Victor Ponta rejects the accusations and claims that the car was borrowed and cannot cost that much. Ponta invited Blejnar to alert anti-graft prosecutors.

Evenimentul Zilei reads about the plans of the Liberal Party to submit a new motion of censure against the government, which will remove the incumbent government. However, the plans of the Liberals depend entirely on the support of the governing Hungarian Democrats who have been known for sticking with the ruling party rather than betraying it.

Now that the opposition has aligned their forces, the seat of the President or that of the Prime Minister seems unstable.