What the newspapers say: February 24, 2009

The Romanian Central Bank seems to be the only institution in the Eastern Europe that fails to support its national currency. Elsewhere in the news, former PM Nastase is once again protected by his parliamentarian fellows who refuse to send him to Court, at least for a while.

Social Democrats (PSD) and Democrat Liberals (PDL), the two governing parties in Romania, decided on Monday to postpone for at least a week the decision on whether former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase should or should not go to Court in two corruption files. Next week, the House of Deputies will decided only if the matter is worth discussing or not, Evenimentul Zilei reads.

On the other hand, the Romanian prosecutor general, Laura Kovesi, says that her only regret, after spending three years in the office, is that she was not allowed to change the incompetent prosecutors. Although she runs a major anti-graft office, Laura Kovesi doesn’t have the necessary instrument to eliminate prosecutors who don’t „do their job”, Romania Libera reads. Instead, it’s the Superior Council of Magistrates that has all the strings together.

Elsewhere in the news, the governors of East European central banks acted together on Tuesday, making public statements designed to reinforce their national currencies. Romania was the only country where the speech held by Mugur Isarescu didn’t have any effects. The national currencies strengthened in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, Gandul reads.

The only industry that seems to do well during the crisis is the weapon construction. On the other hand, Amnesty International emphasizes that it is likely that the weapons Romania sold to Israel during the past four years are used in the Gaza Strip conflict. Romania delivered weapons worth 21 million Euros to Israel, between 2004 and 2007, the organization accuses, according to Evenimentul Zilei.