What the newspapers say: October 29, 2008
All newspapers today read about PM Tariceanu’s decision to postpone the 50% teachers’ salary increase until as late as April 1, 2009. Elsewhere in the news, Romania will face a real economic crisis in 2009 as unemployment rates will increase tremendously to 1 million people. Last but not least, one newspaper puts forward the idea of political gambling, where people can bet on who is going to win a term in the Parliament in these fall elections.
All newspapers on Wednesday read about the new political crisis between Romania’s PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu and President Basescu, on the teachers’ salary increase law. Cotidianul informs that PM Tariceanu decided to postpone the application of the law until as late as April 2009, even if Parliamentary elections are imminent.
Tariceanu declared that he would rather be the „bad wolf” and explained that any increase in salaries should be implemented gradually. He underlined that this year the teachers’ salaries increased by 6% in April and by 9% in October. Therefore, Tariceanu declared that neither the Parliament, nor the President offered financing sources for their increase.
The 2009 budget proposed by the government does not include the 50% teachers’ salary increase. Plus, it limits the spending of public institutions to increase the money for the Agriculture, Interior, Foreign Affairs and Justice ministries. Tariceanu declared that the budget takes into account the world crisis and needs to be moderate.
At his turn, Gandul reads, President Basescu declared that there are resources in the Government but they are targeted to political clients rather to professors. Basescu accused the government of lack of sincerity and pointed out to some salary increase of other social categories in the detriment of teachers.
Still on the economic side, Romania’s unemployment rates would increase to 10% next year, Evenimentul Zilei reads.If until now Romanian employers complained of lack of skilled labor force, the effects of the economic crisis will change the work environment completely.
Thus, according to the newspaper’s estimations, based on information from various economic sectors, unemployment rates will increase to 10%, with 1 million people unemployed. According to the Romanian National Statistics Institute, in the second quarter of the year, the unemployment rate was 5.6%.
Romania’s businessmen association director Cristian Parvan declared that all sectors in the economy are affected by the financial crisis and companies will have to consider firing employees to cut costs.
Plus, Romania’s PM Tariceanu declared that the unemployment rate will increase by 300,000 Romanians. However, there are also those Romanians living abroad that will return home as the constructions sector in Spain or Italy is seriously affected by the crisis.
Last but not least, Romania Libera puts forwards an opportunity for the electorate to win some money, by using the online betting system. The newspaper reads that the system works just like in sports and people could actually win big returns if they chose the right people.
Unibet betting company representative, Manuel Stan declared that the quotations cannot be very high, because there are clear favorites to some counties and thus people would most definitely win.