President Basescu: Romania not willing to admit control of Russian investors

Romania would not agree to be controlled by Russian investors, President Traian Basescu told Austrian weekly magazine Profil in an interview quoted by the Presidential Administration website on Monday.

Basescu said that while the experience of the Soviet era prevents Romania from accepting the rule of Russian investors, it would never question partnerships with them.

He also said that Romania was holding talks with Austrian oil company OMV to guarantee that its Romanian subsidiary OMV-Petrom remains an integral part of the country’s energy strategy.

Asked whether Romania, which still faces troubles related to its communist past, should push a certain lustration law, Basescu said that “lustration is possible if applied a year after a revolution. But 16 years have already passed. Many employees of the Securitate (ex-dictator Ceausescu’s secret police) are long since retired.

They’re no longer active in the current intelligence service as they are in the economy or in politics”.