What the newspapers say: June 10, 2011

European Commission claims Romania’s territorial re-organization has nothing to do with EU funds, contradicting the declarations of the Prime Minister. One newspaper talks about the wealth of Social Democrat tycoon Liviu Dragnea. Thousands of young Romanians take a stand against corruption in social networks. Romanian immigrants do not send their money back home.

Gandul reads that the European Commission contradicts the Prime Minister, claiming that Romania’s territorial reorganization has nothing to do with EU funds. PM Emil Boc declared last week that without the re-organization Romania risks losing money from the EU.

Contacted by the newspaper, PM Boc’s counselor, Andreea Vas admitted that the real problem is that the various regional institutions cannot collaborate to attract EU funds for regional development.

Evenimentul Zilei reveals the fabulous wealth of Social Democratic tycoon Liviu Dragnea in Alexandria, South Romania. The newspaper reads that Dragnea, as President of the County Council has several imposing houses in the county with one of them on 6,000 acres of land.

The villas Dragnea has in the county stand out to the poor houses that generally characterize the area. Thousands of youngsters in Romania decided to take a stand against corruption, using social media networks as ways to spread the word.

Romania libera reads that this is not the first movement that started online that might have a say in the Romanian society. The newspaper reminds its readers about 200,000 citizens who cleaned up the mess of banks: they organized online and decided to collectively sue several banks in Romania.

The new Facebook group, Anticorruption eruption was created by 20 young students that soon attracted over 1,000 members. One of the examples offered by the newspaper is the collaboration of the Facebook group with the TechSoup Romania organization.

They created a platform, which is open to anybody with the names of all public servants working with the public where each citizen can evaluate them especially commend them.

Romania libera reads that even though so far the government relied heavily on the money sent back home by Romanians working abroad, things are starting to change. According to a Soros survey, Romanians working abroad managed to save from August 2009 to August 2010 about 12 billion euro and the National Central Bank confirms that current transfers of only 5.58 billion euro were sent back home.

According to the study, the average sum sent by a Romanian who works abroad back home is 166 euro/month. The study reads that 43% of the Romanians living abroad work in Italy, 23% in Spain, 7% in Germany, 5% in France and 2% in the US.