Romanian newspapers on Tuesday make a series of predictions on whether President Basescu will be suspended or not by the Parliament. The series of revelations lately related to abuses by Romanian politicians and businessmen continues, as do reports related to the situation of Romanian citizens working aborad.

Add a bit of Marilyn Manson, Ceausescu and Mikhalkov and the mix makes for quite a juicy day.

Prime minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu said yesterday that he wanted the current political crisis to come to an end and spoke of the effect the struggles between the state’s main institutions have on the European elections due to take place in Romania this year.

Evenimentul Zilei reads Tariceanu’s statements as a sign that his Liberals (PNL) would not support opposition-backed moves to suspend the President. The paper believes the prime minister is using the European elections issue as a way to justify a possible PNL decision to oppose the suspension of President Traian Basescu.

The same newspaper quotes opposition leader Mircea Geoana who also seemed to step back from the suspension plans by saying that the Social Democrats (PSD) would look into the possibility to change the Constitution to take away some of the President’s prerogatives.

Diminishing the President’s constitutional power and having him elected by the Parliament are two alternatives considered by the PSD, EVZ reports.

Cotidianul writes that the opposition is already considering what to do in case of early presidential elections that Traian Basescu has threatened with.

According to the paper, the PSD and two other opposition groups, the Conservatives and the Greater Romania Party, are looking for a common candidate to stand against currently unbeatable Basescu in a presidential poll.

According to Gandul, that comes at a time when analysts for the PSD have come to the conclusion that Basescu’s credibility cannot be fought back within a period of only three months between his possible suspension/resignation and the early elections.

But Romania libera reports that Mircea Geoana has already proposed himself as a candidate against Basescu, as he is the best placed in polls, among opposition representatives.

News related to the political crisis in Bucharest are backed up with a series of revelations and reports that stress the real troubles of Romanian politics.

Cotidianul writes that Romanian MEPs have noticed a huge difference between the organization and efficiency of the European Parliament, but they cannot determine their colleagues in the Romanian Parliament to change for the better.

Evenimentul Zilei goes investigative and reports that a key player in recent scandals that have hit the energy sector, Bogdan Buzaianu, was an organizer and strategist for the Liberals in the 2000 elections, which were won by the PSD. The one to introduce Buzaianu to the job was current PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu, the paper writes.

Cotidianul digs into a recent parliamentary decision to remove the criminal status of several banking malpractices and finds that one person to benefit of the move is magistrate Maria Huza, the former head of the Bucharest Tribunal, currently charged with encouraging banks to deliver credits illegally.

The same paper reports that anti-corruption moves advance difficultly within the Interior Ministry, where none of the graft cases opened so far affects Ministry bosses as most of those charged are lower-grade officers.

And Gandul reports that House speaker Bogdan Olteanu has managed to dodge sanctions after he “forgot” to submit a key draft legislation on Health reform to parliamentary vote last week.

Meanwhile, Romanialibera writes about the difficulties faced by Accademia di Romania, the Romanian academy in Rome, Italy, which is facing serious troubles because the Romanian Cultural Institute and the Romanian Academy in Bucharest fail to provide a proper financial support.

On the other hand, the Institute head says the Accademia’s activity is not satisfactory as its management is provided by the Liberals now in power in Bucharest.

Gandul also deals with the issues of Romanians abroad. It quotes Britain’s Mail on Sunday, according to which Romanian and Bulgarian workers have been drawing more and more interest from British employers as Polish immigrants have started to apply higher tariffs for various jobs.

Elsewhere in the papers:

• Cotidianul reports that the France Presse agency has published a interview with Romanian maverick politician-businessman Gigi Becali, who’s presented as a populist politician with a huge fortune, a real chance to remain behind President Traian Basescu in a possible early presidential poll and a dream of himself as the saviour of Romania.

• Jurnalul National reports that Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov had a full-throttle stay in Bucharest last weekend, continuously trying to dodge the media and chance hunters, participating in a wave of events and suffering hugely of an infected arm.

• Cotidianul writes that the B’Estival music festival to be organized in Bucharest this summer brings considerable interest from US fans as it would provide a rare opportunity to see arch-rivals Marilyn Manson and Alice Cooper perform on the same stage, same day.

• The same Cotidianul writes that the Romanian public television TVR has started to make good money by selling rights over communist-era footage depicting dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his notorious party gatherings.

The TVR archive contains hundreds of thousands of archived documents with huge historical value, but was hardly exploited so far.