Financial Times: Romania's government is at best, dysfunctional 

A problem never comes alone, Financial Times correspondent for Central Eastern Europe, Chris Bryant writes in his weblog commenting Romania’s situation that has to deal with a VAT increase which according to the Romanian Finance minister will lead to an economic contraction of over 1.5% in 2010. Romania’s government is, at best, dysfunctional, Bryant writes and in the worse case scenario, incompetent, he continues. Bryant qualifies President Basescu as an elephant in a porcelain store.

The comments warns that the estimates for Romania’s economy are grey after the government decided to increase the VAT to 24%, a measure necessary to reach the 6.8% budget set with the IMF – a measure which the President condemned.

Moreover, Romania needs to recover from a wave of floods that lead to the death of 20 people and made damages of over 20 million euro. Even when waters withdraw, Romanians and investors alike realize that things will not get better that soon, he writes.