What the newspapers say: March 22, 2011

Romanian MEP Adrian Severin withdraws from the Socialists group but remains in the European Parliament, following a meeting with Socialists leader Schultz on the recent scandal involving Severin and two other MEPs in attempts to sell their services (to pass amendments) to some presumed lobbyists. In an interview, Google Romania chief talks about the Romanian market and his challenges here. Romania’s public television launches the video of Hotel FM who will represent Romania at Eurovision in May.

Gandul quotes Romanian MEP Adrian Severin saying that he will withdraw from the Socialist group in the EP but will not resign. Severin added that he fully understands the problem of the Socialist group related to the vote and its electorate and said that this lead to his decision to withdraw.

Severin also announced on Monday that he suspends himself from his position in the Social Democratic Party in Romania until the situation is cleared. Leader of the Socialists group in the EP, Martin Schultz requested a meeting at Brussels with MEP Adrian Severin and Zoran Thaler following the accusations in the Sunday Times which he described as extremely serious saying that if they are true, he is ready to take appropriate measures.

In an interview for Gandul, Google Romania chief Dan Bulucea is moderate when he has to share his views on Romanian companies due to the limits imposed by the stock exchange. He said that there are in Romania several companies that prefer to promote themselves globally and invest over 1 million dollars annually in AdWords, a Google ads service. In his opinion, in Romania, there’s a lot of talking and less working.

He took over Google Romania in November 2010 and is still pleased of accepting the offer. His main discontent is that he would like to see Google move faster with the launch of certain products in Romania but he cannot give any other details due to the company policies.

Even though there are hundreds of Romanians working for Google, this year, there will only be 8 people working for Google Romania. About the Romanian market and the online, Bulucea says that less than 10% of the Romanian advertising is represented in the online sphere considering that the European average is 25%. However, he is optimistic regarding the advance of the online in Romania and says that in a few years Romania’s use of the online will gain ground.

Elsewhere in the news, Evenimentul Zilei reads about the public televisions‘ launch of Hotel FM’s video for Change, the song that will represent Romania at Eurovision in May. The newspaper reads that the video was shot in some of the best tourist locations in Romania: the Bran castle, the ice church at Balea lac, the salt mine at Salina Turda and the mountain resort at Moeciu Bran.

So far, the tour of the song that will represent our country took Hotel FM, the band, in Bulgaria, Republic of Moldova and Italy and the song seems to be well received.