What the newspapers say: June 23, 2008

Liberals dismissed their entire Bucharest branch leaders, accusing poor results in the local elections. Meanwhile, at least two powerful leaders in the former governing Social Democrat Party (PSD), former prime minister Adrian Nastase and former Transport Minister Miron Mitrea, may see their criminal files shut due to the unveiling of the anti-graft prosecutors’ reports on the House of Deputies website.

In business-related news, the long-expected real estate crisis begins to take shape, with less and less credits being demanded for buying homes and a shift in the developers’ offer towards commercial spaces.

Liberal Party president, Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, replaced Ludovic Orban, head of the party’s Bucharest branch and refused to offer him a vice-president seat. Tariceanu announced two future vice presidents and said the rest of the team will be announced shortly, Evenimentul Zilei informs. Ludovic Orban remains Transport Minister. In all media interventions, Tariceanu tried to denounce the media speculations saying he put an end to an older conflict, claiming instead that the decision was caused purely by the poor results in the local elections.

Also in politics, former prime minister Adrian Nastase and former Transport Minister Miron Mitrea saw their criminal investigation files published, via the House of Deputies website. The head of the Anti-Graft Prosecution Office (DNA), Daniel Morar, considers the fact as unacceptable, but several voices in the Justice system say that this should not affect the future of the investigation, same Evenimentul Zilei reads. On the other hand, there are voices claiming that publishing the DNA reports before the case is introduced to Court may offer Nastase and Mitrea a new argument to get rid of all accusations, since all the evidence may be annulled.

In the general state of the country, things don’t look very good. The Government takes back its promise to raise the minimum wage limit to 540 RON, as it decided in November and therefore expects a „hot autumn” in its relationship with the labor unions. Until now, only the Economy and Finance Minister, Varujan Vosganian, accepted that „the salaries’ growth is compromised”, while union say that a governmental decision can’t be annulled by simple statements, Gandul reads.

At the same time, banks see an abrupt decrease of the real-estate credits, after six months of continuous decrease of the demand. To compare: in November 2007, Romanians borrowed from banks some 1.17 billion RON to buy homes, in April 2008 – only 268 millions, Cotidianul unveils.

Romania remains an important target for developers, Romania Libera insists, showing that 9.2 billion euro investments were made in 2007, the third largest amount in Europe, after Poland (35.3 billion euro) and the Czech Republic (17.8 billion euro).

Still, the future remains unclear, since event the renting market looks bad at the moment: industrial space rent fell some 20%, making the general investment output decrease from 8 to 7.5%.