What the newspapers say: June 20, 2008

Except for a few late laments about the poor results Romania had at the European Championship, most news focus on the attempt made by the Senate to help former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase avoid prosecution and, as most of the time, on the increasingly difficult financial situation Romania goes through.

„Nastase’s whitening – a juridical parody” is the main title in Evenimentul Zilei: deputies protect the former PM from the prosecutors, invoking political reasons, not juridical arguments. The proportion in the vote was overwhelming: 18 deputies, out of 22, voted against prosecutors opening a criminal inquiry against Nastase.

Cotidianul opens with a similar headline: „Nastase – four lawyers’ houses” – showing that the former PM is under the protection of four parties – Liberals, Social-Democrats, Conservatives and Great Romania. The newspaper also speculates that the report the Commission voted for was already written when the session begun and shows that, in some cases, the deputies assumed Nastase’s argument as if their own.

The rest of Romania is the same and will change to more horror. Starting on July 1, the packs of cigarettes will bear horror pictures of the negative effects of smoking. The warning labels will also be more brutal (Such as: Smoking may cause a slow and painful death), Evenimentul Zilei reads.

The cigarettes will also be more expensive, a fact that comes as a gift for the current Government: the state expenditure skyrocketed before the local elections and reached a 1.2% budget deficit level. After the first four months, the consolidated state budget has an 0.2% surplus, one month later it reached a 0.34% deficit, Cotidianul informs.

Jurnalul National explains that, in fact, the foreign investments are the ones keeping the economy alive, the 7 billion euro investments in 2008 covering over 50% of the budget deficit.