What the newspapers say: May 30, 2008

Once again, newspapers discuss the reasons why Romania is such an expensive country. Investors are not really interested in the food price and launch 100,000 euro mobile phones. Still, two days before the local elections, most news focus on the race for the Bucharest city hall, where two candidates supported by the president in office and the former Romania president seem to have the best chance to win.

Evenimentul Zilei continues the series about „Romania, an expensive country”. In this episode, the newspaper point at the fact that Petrom, owned by OMV, extracts 60% of the oil Romania needs, still the fuel is more expensive here than in Austria, a country that has to import all its oil. Compared to the same Austria, wages are three times less in Romania. In the end, Romanians have 40% of average European GNP per capita.

On the other hand, the same Evenimentul Zilei describes the launching of the Vertu mobile phones in Romania, where a 100,000 phone was spotted (gold case, black and white diamonds, sapphire screen).

While some Romanians can barely wait to show off their cash, others suffer from the „poor tourist” syndrome. Some 170 Romanians were abandoned by their tourism agency in France, near Lourdes, where they were returning from a pilgrimage trip. The tourism agency did not pay for their accommodation so that some 110 persons were forced to spend the night in a camping and other 50 went to a hotel, all of them paying by themselves.

In the main event this week-end, the candidates with the best chance to win the Bucharest City Hall are independent Sorin Oprescu and Democrat-Liberal Vasile Blaga. Evenimentul Zilei comments that the first enjoys the support of former president Ion Iliescu, while the second is president Basescu’s man.

Speaking of Basescu: the president had an intervention last night, calling Romanians to vote. „It is the first scrutiny where one can choose their representatives directly, not through party lists. I will be the first to vote and I advise all Romanians to spare 10 or 20 minutes from their free day Sunday”, Basescu said. Gandul notes that Basescu made no mentions about the Bucharest City Hall elections, despite the fact that, according to some rumors, he was about to involve in supporting Vasile Blaga.

Romania Libera explains, on the other hand, who Romanians are not eager to vote on Sunday: there are no less than 362,061 candidates in Romania, in front of some 18.3 potential voters.