All newspapers on Friday read about the meeting President Basescu seems to have had with Central Bank deputy governor Cristian Popa to have him accept the PM position. Meanwhile, the scandal at Romania’s customs continues as union leaders blame each other on taking bribes. A government’s project plans to financially attract Romanian researchers working abroad.

Gandul quotes political sources saying that President Basescu met on Thursday night with Central Bank deputy governor Cristian Popa, in an attempt to have him Prime Minister. The information was aired by Antena 3 and Realitatea TV news televisions.

Quoted sources declared that the meeting was aimed at talking about a possible PM position, as Cristian Popa’s name was on the President’s shortlist together with governor Mugur Isarescu, Mihai Tanasescu and Calin Georgescu.

The scandal at customs continues, as customs and police union leaders blame each other of corruption and using the organizations’ money on personal interests, Evenimentul Zilei reads. What is more, their accusations transformed in penal files. Pro Lex union president Vasile Lincu was accused by the police unions president Florin Vilnei of stealing somewhere between 1.5 to 2 billion Romanian old lei in 2005 – 2009.

Therefore, prosecutors started supplementary expertise and hearing tens of members of the Pro Lex union to investigate the accusations. According to judicial sources prosecutors conducted an investigation last year but there was no conclusion because the parties refused to collaborate and did not offer any documents requested.

Lincu claims that there are tens of complaints against him submitted by Vilnei.

Romania libera reads about the attempts of the state to lure Romanian researchers working abroad to come back home. One of the plans is to attract them financially and the state pays between 170,000 to 510,000 lei for those who wish to return. Of the 30,000 Romanian researchers working abroad, only 50 accepted the offer of the state and return to work in the country.

Most of them prefer to remain abroad where they earn a lot more than in Romania. Starting 2007, the state started to allocate important sums of money which researchers can access. Unfortunately, there are few who consider the offer attractive. The sum a young researcher might receive on a project is somewhere between 170,000 to 510,000 lei and his/hers salary around 1,000 euro/month.

Another measure is to offer those researchers who publish specialty articles from 2,000 to 4,000 lei/ per article. However, a researcher could write only 4 quality pieces/year, due to the high standards requested by literature magazines, the newspaper reads.