What the newspapers say: October 4, 2010 

The Social Democratic target is not the suspension of the President, as many might believe, one of PSD leaders Miron Mitrea told the press in an interview on Monday. Elsewhere in the news, the partial payment for the vote on the law on pensions is revealed: PM Boc split the money for infrastructure and sport fields among local Democrat Liberals, Social Democrats, Liberals and Hungarian Democrats. Last but not least, a Romanian association launches the first space shuttle in Romania.

In an interview for Romania libera, PSD Senator Miron Mitrea talks on Monday about the party’s priorities at the time and comments on current internal issues. Mitrea told the newspaper that PSD does not aim to suspend the President by all means, on the contrary.

The party however aims to change the government. Mitrea believes that the law on pensions will be declared unconstitutional so that the opposition would not have reasons to start suspension procedures.

Mitrea said that the current government depends on the votes of the Hungarian Democrats and if the latter decides to exit the governing coalition, the government will dismantle. Regarding the protests on the streets, which PSD leader Victor Ponta declared that he counts on the protests to dismantle the government, Mitrea said that the PSD has nothing to do with such protests.

However, he underlined that street movements will not affect the government, but the general dissatisfaction with the government will.

The Social Democrats aim to change the government and form a coalition with the Liberals and the Hungarian Democrats. As for a PM position, the Liberals want an independent while the Social Democrats want to endorse their party’s leader, Victor Ponta.

Elsewhere in the news, Evenimentul Zilei reads that PM Boc has split the money for infrastructure and sport fields among those parties who endorsed the vote on the law on pensions.

Therefore, the newspaper reads, half of the money went to local PDL city halls, 20% for Social Democrats, 20% for the Liberals and 15% to the Hungarian Democrats. The governmental decision splitting the money passed through the government on September 20 together with the two normative acts that contained the sums negotiated by PSD for their tacit support on the law on pensions.

However, they have been published on Friday. Therefore, there are 279 financed city halls lead by the governing party, PDL, 271 lead by the Social Democrats – PSD, 178 lead by the Liberals – PNL and 98 lead by Hungarian Democrats – UDMR.

Gandul reads that the equivalent of NASA in Romania, the association for cosmonautics and aeronautics announced the successful launch in outer space of the first Romanian space shuttle, Helen 2.

The shuttle took off on Saturday from the Black Sea. Images and results of the flight will be communicated tomorrow. The first attempt took place last year but due to technical problems, it was a failure.

Since then, the organization conducted a series of tests to redress the problem. The association is listed in the Google Lunar X Prize competition, where it has to send a shuttle into space by 2015.

The prize is worth 30 million dollars.