What the newspapers say: January 18, 2011

More and more Democrat Liberals have problems with the judicial system despite the fact that the party took upon itself to fight corruption, one newspaper reads on Tuesday. Elsewhere in the news, 136,000 Romanians hold gun permits and guns. European Commissioner for customs union, taxing, audit and anti-fraud Algirdas Semeta calls for an efficient collaboration between the EU and Romania in the anti-fraud fight. On a lighter tone, a Romanian received American citizenship at 72 years old.

Romania libera reads that more and more Democrat Liberals have problems with the judicial system despite the fact that the party portrays itself as an anti-corruption fighter. What is more, the problems deputies or Senators have seemed to be ignored by the party itself, as they maintain their functions and membership.

The newspaper wonders who the party will manage to convince the public for the implementation of reforms with such problems within the party itself. PDL member Frunzaverde declared for the newspaper that the party does not have more members with problems than other parties, but news televisions popularize just those in the Democrat Liberal party.

The party never defended publicly any of those who turned out to be guilty or investigated by anti-graft prosecutors and always left the justice to do its duty, another PDL member declared. Moreover, PDL informal leader Gheorghe Flutur said that a difference must be made between those who actually get convicted and those who are suspected.

According to the party’s statute, members of the party are automatically excluded if temporary arrested. If there are suspicions, members can willingly give up their membership until their situation is clarified in justice.

European Commissioner for anti-fraud Algirdas Semeta calls for an efficient collaboration between the EU and Romania in the anti-fraud fight. The European Commissioner had an official visit to Bucharest last week. In an interview for the newspaper, the European official talks about Romania’s problems with fraud in EU funds and about the Commission’s future strategy in the sector.

Regarding the various legislative modifications in the fiscal sector, that dissatisfied investors in Romania, the Commissioner believes that they came in a specific context in which the markets requested fast austerity measures. He says that fiscal unpredictability should not become a general practice.

Regarding the European Commission’s new strategy in the sector, the official said the strategy will focus on prevention first and foremost. It is important to make more efforts to prevent it than react after the fraud took place, he said.

Over 136,000 Romanian hold firearms, legally, Gandul reads. However, felonies with armed hands are committed with illegal guns. Last year, police officers confiscated 2,640 guns compared to 2,304 in 2009. Last year alone, 16,000 armed with guns with balls or compressed air.

Of the total guns held, most are hunting guns – about 80,000. Another 10,000 are guns used by trainers and sportsmen. A special category is defense and protection guns. About 800 such arms are held by a privileged category including Parliamentarians, police officers, magistrates and military.

Evenimentul Zilei reads about Floarea Ganea, aged 72 who received this weekend American citizenship in Arizona. The family immigrated to the US in 1998 together with their two sons, Daniel aged 38 now and Elisei aged 28 now.