What the newspapers say: August 16, 2010 

By 2025, if Romanian authorities will not manage to build at least 1.500 km of highway, on many important roads, cars will travel by 4km/hour, one newspaper on Monday reads. In politics, one newspaper voices a Democrat Liberal deputy, who expresses his views on the party and the government. Elsewhere in the news, France slowly becomes just like Italy when it comes to dealing with Rroma ethnic communities.

Romania will need, in the upcoming 15 years to build about 1,200 km of highway, traffic specialists estimate unless authorities want to get into the situation in which the traffic will be overwhelmed. Romania nly has for now 300 km of highway wich means that, to be able to drive decent on national roads authorities will have to build by 2025, on average 80 km/year.

Experts contacted by the newspaper explained that they made traffic estimates in the best case scenario in which Romania will have highways and for the worse case scenario. By comparing the two situations, experts calculated how traffic on old roads is influencedby the construction of new ones.

If authorities will not manage to build some highways across the crountry, the perspectives are not too good. According to estimates, traffic between Bucharest and Ploiesti wil reach 52,892 daily average calculated over a year and if the highway will be build, the traffic will drop to 43,33 cars on the highway and 35,297 cars on the old road – about 20,000 cars less.

The same holds true for other road segments highly circulated at the moment.

Evenimentul Zilei voices out Democrat Liberal deputy Sever Voinescu after his clash with President Basescu. Voinescu explains why he does not wish to quit the party and says that the government needs to be changed.

The number of Democrat Liberals demanding the separation of the government from the party’s leadership is increasing rapidly. Despite recent criticism from Basescu, his former electoral campaign spokesperson Sever Voinescu maintains his criticism against the government.

Romania needs a PM with authority in front of all political parties, capable to convince. At his turn, the Democratic Party needs a leader with a vision, able to bring fresh blood, Voinescu declared.

Voinescu declared that there are people in the party who are loyal to the party as long as they get to make some money. He said that he is ready to take any position in the party, but in a new team.

Elsewhere in the news, despite UN and Council of Europe criticism, together with some NGOs across the world, French authorities continue to evacuate gypsie camps. The objective set by French President Sarkozy is to reduce by half the existent camps by the end of October.

The French government, the country where the declaration of human rights was called was accused of racism by a UN official due to the campaign. In practice, gypsies do not have an alternative for the camps they set up on public spaces and they cannot be expelled en masse, as they are protected by European rights.

Thus, authorities cannot resolve much related to the 15,000 Rroma in France – most from Romania and Bulgaria, but Sarkozy seems to gain more and more electoral capital for his decisions on the this matter.

On Friday, about 1000 gypsies from South West France were scattered away and on Saturday the same scenario repeated in a suburb in France.