Another minister resigns, another scandal splits the political stage in Bucharest, where alliances are redrawn across the whole spectrum, according to newspapers on Monday. The papers also talk about Romanians’ interest in conspiracy theories, and look into how Romanian workers live at military coalition bases in Iraq.
Gandul quotes Foreign minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu who announced in a press conference on Sunday that he would submit his official resignation today because PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu asked him to.
He explained that he chose to comply with Tariceanu’s request because he did not inform the prime minister about the situation of two Romanian workers who had been retained by US forces in Iraq.
Evenimentul Zilei notes that while Ungureanu leaves the government, he would not leave Tariceanu’s National Liberal Party-PNL. The paper quotes Tariceanu saying that the party would even consider offering Ungureanu the option of leading the PNL in European Parliament elections this year.
The same newspaper reports that PNL deputy president Teodor Melescanu, who served as Foreign minister in the nineties, has the most party support to replace Ungureanu.
Cotidianul notes that Ungureanu’s resignation balances the authority of PM Tariceanu and his rival, President Traian Basescu, as each lost a minister in Iraq-related disputes in the recent past.
Ungureanu - a moderate seen as good collaborator of Basescu’s - was preceded last year by another Liberal seen as close to Tariceanu, ex-Defense minister Teodor Atanasiu.
Jurnalul National publishes an exhaustive interview with PM Tariceanu, who launches a new attack against the head of state, whom he accuses of being the source of all dissent in Romanian politics over the past year.
And he says that while the rivalry between his Liberals and Basescu cannot be hidden, a break-up of the current governing coalition uniting the Liberals and Basescu’s Democratic Party-PD is not a given thing.
Still, Evenimentul Zilei quotes Tariceanu’s statements for Jurnalul National and understands that the prime minister would not exclude sharing the government with the Social Democrats, now in opposition, in case the alliance with the PD falls.
And Cotidianul reports that the Social Democrats and the far-right Greater Romania Party-PRM have announced the conclusion of a document which will form the basis for their move to suspend the President.
The document is currently analyzed by the PRM and the Conservative Party and is due to be submitted to the permanent board of the Parliament this week.
Meanwhile, the same Cotidianul quotes a recent study that shows one in three Romania believes in conspiracy theories.
According to the newspaper, Romanians believe that global financies and politics are dictated by Jews, that there were hidden international agendas during the Romanian revolution in 1989, that referees conspire against Romania’s football team in international matchs and points to PRM leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor as one sample of politician who fuels such beliefs.
And Adevarul tells the story of an “undercover reporter” in Iraq, who describes how Romanians living in US bases there live a much better life as they do at home.
The paper also reports that the US may open a bottled water factory in Romania, but the project depends on whether a US-Romania treaty for the use of a military base here would allow such an initiative.
