What the newspapers say: February 2, 2009

The crisis effects consolidate, and there are no signs yet that the things would ever get better. The latest Governmental measures fail to convince anyone that the newly elected cabinet is ready to deal with the financial and economic problems, the only certain fact until now being the growth of taxes, instead of the promised relaxation and support of investments.

The Government expects to gain more from companies, Evenimentul Zilei reads: taxes on profit are expected to bring 3% to the state budget in 2009, compared to 2008, while taxes on the banks’ profits may increase 7%.

The problem, Cotidianul reads, is that the promised lack of taxes on reinvested profit was eventually dropped, at least until 2010. Even worse, the decrease of spending with budgetary personnel is absent in the budget draft. During the past two weeks, the Government kept on promising various spending cuts, from laying off 20% of the employees to freezing salaries.

In politics, the presidential plan to gain more power seems to lack popular support: although president Basescu enjoys the confidence of some 57% of the electors, 47% of the people would prefer that the Parliament had the higher power in the system. Only 39% wish for a more powerful president, Evenimentul Zilei reads. In the Constitution modification draft, a presidential commission suggested that the president should be able to solve the Parliament.

Back to the economy: the real estate market is still blocked, but not necessarily because of the lack of cash. According to Gandul, at least 25% of the potential buyers wait for the prices to drop some more. Since the beginning of 2008, prices of older apartments in Bucharest decreased 25%, while the prices for new apartments see discounts up to 30%.

The international situation isn’t shiny either: according to Cotidianul, the next European Commission report on Romania will still criticize the negative evolutions in the Romanian Justice. The report should be published between February 9 and 13. The Boc government assumed as target the ceasing of Justice monitoring after the final country report, scheduled for July.