What the newspapers say: July 5, 2010

Romanians win against the Romanian state at the European Court of Human Rights. Elsewhere in the news, people died in the late floods from Romania, when there are rules stating the population must be warned in emergency situations. President Traian Basescu revisited a flooded town, where people say money meant for a dam was stolen. Last but not least, Romanians hunt sales in the neighbouring states, after VAT goes up.

Adevarul focuses on the first Romanians to have won a trial against the Romanian state in European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The „Pantea against Romania” case changed the penal procedure in the case of preventive arrest: it is not the prosecutor who decides the arrest, but the judge now. Ex-communist prosecutor Alexandru Pantea was investigated and arrested in 1994 after a fight where the other person ended up in medical care for 250 days. Another trial he won followed the complaint of very lengthy trials and the fact that his phone calls were listened to twice by the prosecutors. Ioan Petra, who served in prison for 15 years for murder, accused the Romanian authorities of reading the letters he used to send to his family and for delaying the letters. He also showed that letters to him from officials in Strasbourg suffered the same fate or, worse, did not reach him. Romania was forced to pay 10,000 French francs.

Romania Libera tries to find out why people died in the late floods from Romania, when there are rules stating the population must be warned in emergency situations. Often the announcement gets stuck in local councils, failing to reach the subjects of its impact. Seven people died only in Dorohoi. Mayor Dorin Alexandrescu says he had no clue on what the weather would bring in his courtyard. The mayor, for whom the coloured meteorological codes mean nothing, as he admitted, mentioned official notes warned of 40-60 litres per sqm, but there were 163 l/sqm. Council officials from various counties say they don’t hold the blame and nothing could have saved the people who died. Romania has accepted the assistance offers made by Belgium and Austria, after authorities in Bucharest activated the EU Mechanism for Civil Protection on Friday, July 2.

Gandul reads on President Traian Basescu’s visiting affected regions. He revisited the town of Sacuiesti from Bacau on Sunday, saying one of the reasons of his return were lies. Responding to alleged lies accusing that the money for the dam were stolen, presumably by the local authorities, Basescu said there wasn’t any penny allocated for a dam in that particular town. According to him, 6 million Euros are to be allocated for the construction of an 18 km long dig and the money will be granted through the Environment Ministry, and not through local councils. When an old woman said she did not believe it, the President replicated: „Lady, I’m not lying to you”.

Evenimentul Zilei reads about Romanians hunting sales in neighbouring states. Hungarian hypermarkets parkways are full with cars with a Romanian registration number. Tesco and Cora are among the favourites, where staff say that at least one out of ten clients is Romanian. This may as well be an effect of the raise in VAT in Romania. One kilo of sausages costs 16 lei in Romania and 6 lei in Hungary, to give one example. The Romanian Government increased the VAT as an austerity measure meant to help cut the budget deficit. Bulgaria and Hungary are expecting the number of Romanian clients to grow.

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