What the newspapers say: April 11, 2006

President Traian Basescu keeps the front page of the newspapers once again on Tuesday, this time with his youth years’ collaboration with the former Communist secret police the Securitate, as an alleged report of the Defense Ministry (MApN) reveals, made public by an old adversary Mugur Ciuvica.

The reconciliation of the two DA alliance parties, the Democrats and the Liberals, on Monday evening, following a tumultuous weekend of statements against each other, shares the newspapers’ columns with the lustration law that barely passed the Senate thanks to the solidarity within the governing coalition.

Turbid waters in politics seem less alarming compared to the Danube’s high waters that have broken a solid damn and threaten to flood hundreds of households along the riverbank.

Mugur Ciuvica had accused Basescu of collaboration with the former Securitate before, but he was sued by Romanian president and lost. This time Ciuvica comes back with alleged new proof.

Jurnalul National wonders „Basescu: To be or not to be collaborator?” elaborating on some secret documents of the Directorate General of Information within the Defense Ministry that had leaked and were presented on Monday to the public by the Group for Political Investigation, headed by the older adversary of Traian Basescu, Mugur Ciuvica.

The document was created in 2004 to serve the label trial sued by Basescu against Ciuvica in 2004.

The information in the documents gives away Traian Basescu as a former collaborator of the Securitate during his studentship years, but who had not received an undercover name and whose activity ended in 1976 with the completion of the Marine Institute.

„Relationship of student Basescu with Securitate, revealed by Defense Ministry docs” Gandul writes on the front pages. The daily details on the two secret documents revealed by Mugur Ciuvica, and on his request to the MApN to make public all documents containing information about president Basescu’s relationship to former Securitate.

The documents have been confirmed as „authentic” by a former general with the MApN, however the Presidency denied in an official report any involvement of Traian Basescu with the Counter Information Directorate of the Securitate.

Cotidianul hints in the front page article „Securitate ghost haunts him again” that the leak of documents from the MApN might have something to do with the minister of Defense Teodor Athanasiu, a Liberal that asked for his party withdrawal from the governing alliance D.A., following Basescu’s statements against liberals over the last few days.

The inflammatory statements of the two party members have been sanctioned on Monday evening by the leaders of the Liberals and of the Democrats, who reconciled at the price of exclusion of some very vocal critics from the alliance management board, according to Adevarul article.

Both leaders scolded some top figures of the party for the sake of the alliance functioning properly until the protocol ends in 2008.

Cotidianul says that although a truce was established between the two parties in order to fulfill their mission of taking Romania to the EU, PM Tariceanu asked his liberal fellows to avoid criticizing the Democrats but not to spare president Traian Basescu.

„Danube broke the damn” says Jurnalul National which quotes hydrologists’ forecasts that rain will not stop until Thursday. The Danube riverbanks inhabitants are frightened but vigilant, following the collapse of the Isaccea damn in Tulcea county and the rise of the water levels at a critical depth.

Increased measures were taken to prevent flooding in the perspective of a great river flow expected on Tuesday. President Basescu visited the area surprised by the collapse of the damn that three days ago seemed steady and protective.

To the West, the customs Bechet is under waters. To the East, a damn collapses. The Danube boils, according to Evenimentul Zilei.

The lustration law passed in the Senate, writes Romania Libera, thanks to one vote that made the difference. The initiator of the law, liberal Mona Musca, expressed satisfaction that finally such law became reality in Romania.

The Social Democrats and the Greater Romania party voted against, but the Governing coalition mustered the minimum number of votes to pass the law.