A new image for Romania is being nursed in the Foreign Ministry labs, although the reality seems to be enough to damage any good intentions officials may have.

The political stage takes a break in scandals, after the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of president Basescu and the Justice Minister. Taxes and bank interests are exaggerated and everything goes on as smooth as it always did.

President Traian Basescu recovers the lost popularity, rising to 50% of the electors' trust, compared to 44.3% in January, when the "pink notes" scandal burst. Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu also returns to 25%, from a drop to 22.3% in January, Evenimentul Zilei reads.

The main Opposition party, social democrat PSD, says it's clear for everyone that president Basescu's suspension will never work, but that procedures will continue, so that the party "wouldn't feel discouraged". PSD also promises an offensive against the government, Evenimentul Zilei and Romania Libera inform.

All this seems petty business when the "Big Bear" returns to its threatening attitude: "In case Poland and the Czech Republic accept to host anti-rocket shield facilities, the two countries may turn into possible targets for Russian tactical weapons", says Nikolay Solovtov, Russia's head of strategical forces, according to Evenimentul Zilei

"Romania, a fabulous spirit" is the new image campaign the Foreign Ministry is about to launch, trying to fight the European prejudice on Romanians, Gandul reads.

A few rows later, a piece of news in the same newspaper makes the new campaign worthless: "PM Tariceanu explained the Japanese prime minister that not all Romanians in Japan are exotic dancers". Tariceanu admits though that there are a lot of Romanian exotic dancers in Japan and that a problem in human trafficking exists.

Romanians may repair their image on their own: the demand for foreign languages classes grew 30% after the EU accession (Adevarul) so we may soon explain on our own soon what exactly is the Romanian spirit.

But most things remain unchanged. The football "wise guys" built a tax evasion network that caused a 60 million euros prejudice to the budget, Romania Libera reads in a piece of investigation journalism.

An entire criminal clan is under investigation in Craiova for a 7 million euros prejudice, the info in Adevarul comes to compensate.

Whatever happens, the taxes and interests are still too high in Romania, so all losses will eventually be covered with public money. And one may see that in any newspaper.