What the newspapers say: January 7, 2011

President Basescu declared he was disappointed by the lack of solidarity from colleagues Merkel and Sarkozy, most newspapers read on Friday. Elsewhere in the news, the new draft law on control allows heads of budgetary institutions to financially award its employees without an evaluation. Last but not least, a Romanian bus was involved in an accident in Bulgaria causing the death of a person.

President Basescu declared he was disappointed that he was not warned by his colleagues Merkel and Sarkozy about the intention of their Interior ministers to sign a common letter against Romania and Bulgaria’s adhesion to Schengen, Gandul reads. Basescu said that the two ministers were not fair and that Romanians will not crushed as worms just because this involves the biggest European states, Germany and France.

Basescu underlined that 22 million Romanians need to be respected. Basescu declared that Romania could even stop purchasing technology from its Western partners if Bucharest does not receive a firm date to join Schengen.

In the same vein, Evenimentul Zilei reads about the President’s declarations in a public television talk show on Thursday night. The newspaper reads that the Schengen effects are felt economically as transports companies would benefit most.

Elsewhere in the news, Romania libera reads that according to a new draft law, each employee of control institutions will benefit from monthly bonuses up to 30% of their salary, awarded with a clear evaluation. The main motivation of the government when it eliminated bonuses was that bonuses were offered without professional evaluations and the new draft does not contain any such requirement.

The newspaper reads that even though bonuses were ceased through law, there were cases in which employees continued to receive bonuses. At Tulcea, South East Romania, employees of the Public Finances received bonuses amounting to 667 lei/each. Moreover, heads of services at border control or other financial institutions received a Christmas bonus of 5,000 lei and their deputies a bonus of 4,300 lei.

Evenimentul Zilei reads that a bus registered in Romania was involved in a deadly accident in Bulgaria. A person died in the collision while another one was hospitalized. The incident happened last night, around 9:30PM in North Bulgaria. Local police declared that there were no victims in the Romanian bus.