What the newspapers say: March 30, 2009

Romania’s facing a social crisis as the economic one deepens, one newspaper reads on Monday. In politics, former PSD General Secretary Miron Mitrea admits that he organized and paid people to make favorable comments about the party in political forums. Elsewhere in the news, former Justice minister Monica Macovei confirmed that she will run in the upcoming European Parliamentary elections for the Democrat Liberals.

Evenimentul Zilei reads on Monday about Romania’s imminent social crisis, as the economic one deepens. Along with other visible effects, the newspaper reads, Romania will succumb to less visible ones, harder to quantify or predict such as the social crisis.

Official data reveals that Romanians protest in a chaotic way and money are the only reason for pulling people in the streets. In Romania, compared to other European countries, unions do not inspire and protests are rarely used. Official data shows that there were only 346 legal protests organized in Romania from 1992 onwards.

However, labor conflicts registered 3,521 protests in the same period. In Poland, however, there were at least 17,131 protest actions of this sort.

Gandul reads, quoting HotNews.ro that Miron Mitrea, former Secretary General in the Social Democratic Party has organized and paid men to make favorable comments or criticize the opposition on political forums.

In an online discussion, organized by HotNews.ro, Mitrea revealed that the „unit” was organized at the party’s headquarters where several people, in a rebuttal mission, would make comments on newspaper sites or other political forums.

I do not believe in coincident, you are not too well organized now, and don’t try to deny it because I set up the rebuttal unit, Mitrea said, annoyed by the questions he received from Hotnews.ro’s forum. Mitrea explained that each party has a number of people to support politicians who attend a talk show.

Mitrea said that the Democrat Liberals were better organized than the Social Democrats in the beginning and that eventually the Social Democrats set up a rebuttal unit as well, to be present on blogs and internet debates that gained importance in the last years.

However, Mitrea’s party colleagues did not admit the existence of such a unit within the party’s headquarters. Nonetheless, these internet guerrillas, the newspaper reads, were initially used in the 2004 elections, when President Basescu used the internet as a main weapon.

Last but not least, Cotidianul confirms that former Justice minister, Monica Macovei will run for a seat in the European Parliament this year on the Democrat Liberal lists, together with Theodor Stolojan, analyst Cristian Preda and Traian Ungureanu, former journalist.

Theodor Stolojan declared that the party will present a final list on Monday for official validation.