What the newspapers say: March 25, 2008

Newspapers on Tuesday read about the internal differences between former PSD President, Ion Iliescu and PSD District 5 Bucharest Mayor Marian Vanghelie over the nomination of the party for the Bucharest Mayor seat. Also in the news today, as the NATO Summit approaches, some 1000 police officers from across the country are summoned in Bucharest. More in the news, George W. Bush will be informed about the Transylvania highway and its deadlocked situation when he comes to Romania for the NATO Summit.

Evenimentul Zilei deals with the struggles within the main opposition party in Romania, the Social Democratic Party (PSD), on the nomination of a candidate for the Bucharest Mayor seat. The newspaper reads that former PSD President and founder Ion Iliescu attacked the current PSD leader’s Mircea Geoana nominee, Marian Vanghelie, who now serves as mayor in the District 5 of Bucharest.

Sources of the newspaper read that Iliescu criticized the current PSD District 5 Mayor for his illegal money sources. At its turn, Vanghelie accused Iliescu that his proposal for these elections, Sorin Oprescu, is on slippery ground, financially sponsored by obscure businessmen.

However, it seems that Vanghelie is mainly criticized for his educational formation and his inability to appeal to intellectuals, unlike his counter candidate. A final end of this divergence is unlikely: Social Democrats have postponed any decision until after the NATO Summit in early April, hoping that time will settle the conflict.

As the Summit approaches, authorities gather up their forces to deal with the important event and its special security needs. Romania Libera reads that some 1000 police forces were detached from the country in order to secure Bucharest.

The newspaper reads that Bucharest police forces will teach their fellow colleagues everything they need to know about the city. Newspaper sources read that the training of the police forces is very important to assure the safety of important streets in the capital city.

The first theoretical information received was that in Bucharest, the traffic is quite unbearable and that drivers are very nervous, unlike other regions in the country. Several teams from Transylvania, Central Romania argue that they took part in other similar missions in Bucharest and they will have no trouble adapting.

And still about the Summit, Gandul reads that American President George W Bush will be informed of the deadlock faced by the American construction company Bechtel in finishing the Transylvania highway in Romania.

Sources within the embassy read that if Bechtel boss Riley Bechtel will not have a chance to fly over Transylvania with the US President, then US Ambassador to Romania Nicholas Taubman will show him pictures portraying the status of the construction site.

Thus, either way, Bush will know the situation Bechtel confronts in Romania: constructions works had to stop because the money allocated from the state’s budget were spent on other things. Thus, Bechtel did not receive the payment for the December, January and February invoices, totalling some 50 million euro.

However, the Government could find a solution to this problem: on the one hand, the government can get the money from the National Development Fund, money obtained from privatizations and reserved for infrastructure works.

On the other hand, Bechtel officials argue that Romanian authorities could get the money from the EU if the highway will connect to another European one or, in the last case, the government can take up a foreign credit.