Steaua Bucharest managed to end the game against Fiorentina at 0:0, winning an important point in the football game abroad. Unfortunately, is the only good news of the day. Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu met EC president Jose Manuel Barroso and received some criticism on the recent evolutions of the anti-graft campaign. Meanwhile, the international financial crisis begins to be felt in Romania, where the national currency begun to drop and the cost of credits is expected to grow significantly.

Steaua Bucharest still has a shot at the qualification from the Champions' League groups, after the even score against Fiorentina last night (0:0). Even for the Italian team, the best player was the Romanian striker Mutu, Romanian newspapers comment.

Finance Minister Varujan Vosganian admitted on Tuesday, for the first time since the début of the international financial crisis, that Romania should be in a "state of permanent alert", even though it was not significantly affected by the foreign events on the market. The cash flow on the Romanian market seems to be the main reason for concern, according to Vosganian. More expensive credits and a price decrease on the real estate market will be the first and most important effects of the global crisis, Evenimentul Zilei reads.

On the same subject, Gandul adds that all prices that are referred to in Euros will grow, including rent payments and bank installments.

Same Gandul notes that the European government didn’t wait for a signal from the United States and begun to buy banks that might be otherwise in crisis. The Lowlands (Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg) injected 11.2 billion Euros in Fortis, one of the largest players on the banking market, while another 6 billion Euros are about to be spent for supporting Dexia.

What the international crisis failed to cause in Romania, the Parliament will accomplish - that is the headline in Cotidianul. After the Parliament's decision to increase the average wages for teachers 50%, all budgetary unions threaten to go on strike in case similar decisions are not taken for their branches. Satisfying the demands of workers in public administration, customs, environment and public finance would represent a 5.6 billion Euros effort that would throw Romania into a severe financial crisis, Cotidianul comments.

In politics, Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu met EC president Jose Manuel Barroso and attempted to lie about the content of the discussions. After admitting that changing the naming procedures for anti-graft chief prosecutors may have been an ill-timed decision, Tariceanu added that the discussions did not include any references on the cooperation and verification procedures agreed with the European Commission, Later in the day, EC spokesman Mark Gray issued a press release that clearly states that “On the cooperation and verification mechanism, president Barroso underlined the need for renewed efforts to implement fully the four benchmarks that Romania agreed at the time of accession. He stressed the Commission's continued commitment to work in partnership with the Romanian authorities and encouraged the Government to treat the fight against high-level corruption as an issue of national importance”.

One of the benchmarks includes the chief-prosecutors naming procedures.