Romanian newspapers on Monday read about the country’s Prime minister and President taking a stand to defend Romanian citizens who've been under constant attacks in Italy.

Another newspaper interviews President Basescu on the tensions sparked by his call for a referendum on uninominal voting and its impact upon the political class.

Elsewhere in the papers, Romanian investments of more than 800 million euro in the Ukrainian plant Krivoy Rog could be lost, as Ukrainians abandoned works there and the privatization process at the plant is far from finished.

Gandul reads that tensions between President Basescu and PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu leave no room for communication in a moment when Romanian authorities need to take a common stand against the developing crisis with Romanians in Italy.

The crisis was sparked by A Rroma (Gypsy) man of Romanian origin killing an Italian woman recently, which led to a series of police raids and harsh official rhetoric against Romanian immigrants in the crisis.

The newspaper reads that even though President Basescu called PM Tariceanu and several other Ministers for talks on the issue, PM Tariceanu preferred to organize his own ‘’crisis cell’’.

In a press conference, Tariceanu declared that he urges counterpart Romano Prodi to counter the xenophobic acts of Italian citizens against Romanian immigrants. Moreover, he denounced Italian authorities for failing to integrate the immigrants.

On his turn, President Basescu appealed to the Foreign Ministry to announce the European Commission that a new Italian law on public safety is infringing the rights of alleged attackers, not giving them a chance to defend themselves.

Moreover, he added that Romanians abroad should be proud of their status and that Romanian authorities would defend their rights.

On the domestic political scene, the debate is just as heated when it comes to a referendum on the introduction of uninominal voting in Romania, due to take place later this month. Evenimentul Zilei interviews President Basescu on the issue.

The President argues that the new system will not only reform the political class but it will improve the quality of the politicians.

Basescu added that the draft legislation on the uninominal voting system assumed by the government despite his call for a referendum on a different system will fail to reach its ends due to the modifications in suffered in the Parliament. For this reason, Basescu said he called for a referendum, to make sure that his version of the law passes.

Even if the Parliament was not legally forced to pass the law that is proposed through the referendum, Basescu says that it is the people’s voice that matters and that the Parliament would better comply.

When talking about the impact of the new voting system, Basescu says that two or three important parties would be left once it is fully applied.

Elsewhere in the news, Romania libera reads that Romanian authorities have for the first time admitted to have lost any hope in returning the country's 800 million euro investments in the Ukrainian Krivoy Rog factory any time soon.

Sources in the Romanian Finance Ministry told the newspaper that chances were that the investments would be returned in five to six years when Ukraine will be forced to resolve the pending debt in case it wants to enter the European Union.

In a recent visit in Romania, Ukraine President Yuschenko discussed with both the President and the PM about the issue, but both parties refused to provide details on the issue.