What the newspapers say: March 9, 2011 

​Gasoline prices increase once more in Romania and politicians blame each other instead of taking some measures. Elsewhere in the news, Romania attends its fifth negotiation round with the US to regulate the bilateral cooperation in the anti-missile defense shield. Officially, Romanians represent the biggest community in Spain, with 840, 682 residents.

Gasoline prices increased once more to 5.96 lei/liter for the most expensive type. This is the sixth price increase in 2011 and overall prices increased by 3.5%. The company informs on its website that prices may vary by 5% plus or minus across country.

Company officials said that they price policy is moderated, reflecting the trend of international quotations and not the peaks. To this, politicians had various reactions, mostly blaming each other for the situation in the industry.

PM Boc blames the former Social Democratic Nastase government who privatized Petrom in 2004. He declared that the government then offered the country’s oil reserves almost for free. In the same time, Finance ministry officials claim that there are no grounds for the new price increases.

Officials said that Petrom had no grounds to increase prices this year since the national currency appreciated and there were only two modifications in the excise regime. National Central Bank counselor Adrian Vasilescu said that price increases are actually meant to try the market for companies to see how much they can increase the price without losing too many clients.

Romania libera reads that Romania attends its fifth negotiation round with the US on the judicial framework that will regulate the bilateral cooperation in the anti-missile shield. The newspaper informs that the Romanian delegation will be lead by Bogdan Aurescu, state secretary for European Affairs in the Foreign Affairs ministry and will be joined by colleagues across various institutions.

US delegation will be lead by Frank Rose, deputy state secretary assistant for arms control. The program includes a meeting among leaders of the two delegations to discuss common security issues.

Evenimentul Zilei quotes official Spanish data revealing that the Romanian community is the biggest in Spain at 840,682 residents. Local authorities announced that the number of foreigners living in Spain amounts to 5 million people.

More and more Europeans choose Spain to emigrate while the number of foreigners outside the EU decreased considerably. The tendency shows that in Spain, the number of foreigners increased in 2010 compared to 2009.