Romania's low level of debt - 33-35% of the GDP - allows the country to borrow 30 billion euros more before EU sanctions. Elsewhere in the news, fourteen Romanian teenagers, have been arrested in Paris, accused of cash machine theft. Further in the news, the snow ball effect on the public debt could lead Romania into a formidable deadlock. Last but not least, 11 Romanians have been exploited by a co-national in Portugal.

Romania's low level of accumulating debt - 33-35% of the GDP - allows the country to borrow 30 billion euros. Anything over might attract sanctions from the European Union, Gandul reads. Romania's current debt is 21% of the GDP, but the chief-economist from UniCredit Ţiriac Bank told Gandul that it might reach 37% in 2010.

Romanian Finance minister announced that the taxes will not increase during the next year. He told Gandul that Romania's plan is to borrow massively from national and international institution. The Maastricht Treaty recommends that Romania cannot have a public debt bigger than 60%.

The 11 billion euros to come this year from the IMF and the European Commission are meant to pay salaries, pensions, protect the exchange rate and encourage the restart of the crediting. Romania can still borrow a sum equal with 25% of the GDP, meaning 30 billion euros.

Evenimentul Zilei reads fourteen Romanian teenagers, with ages ranging between 12 and 16, have been arrested this weekend in Paris, accused of theft from French cash machines, Romanian press agency Mediafax informs. Eight girls and six boys robbed quite a number of people while they were redrawing.

The teenagers split in groups of three or two, distracting the bank's client and using a newspaper to cover the cash machine's buttons, while they were typing in a sum, or were stealing money already ordered from a hole in the wall. They were getting away with sums between 100 and 500 euros. According to the French police, eight of the 14 were living in a traveller camp in Saint-Denis.

The snow ball effect on the public debt could lead Romania into a formidable deadlock, economy professor Daniel Daianu told Cotidianul in an interview. He said most East-European countries to join the EU are going through a deep recession because they relied massively on importing capital. The Romanian authorities who planned the budget with a 2.5% deficit in mind did not understand the international impact of the economic phenomena, he said.

Romania is expected by the IMF to record an 8.5%budget deficit by the end of the year. The ex-Finance minister Daianu considers the decision to not tax the reinvested profit to merely act as a subvention, without a big impact. The only (partial) solution he sees is for the private sector to use non-returnable funds. He said that the European commission would have to renounce the idea of co-financed projects.

Daianu believes that joining the euro zone is a far project. "The corrections will be painful: we're paying for economic policy errors from previous years, aided by the change in the international context.”

Adevarulinforms several Romanians have been exploited by a co-national in Portugal, subjecting them to living in miserable conditions, walk tens of kilometres and do hard work.. According to Publico daily, 11 Romanian seasonal workers were held under house arrest in Selmes, physically abused and forced into hard labour. The Romanians had to wake up at 3-4 AM every morning. They received little food and had to sleep on cardboard sheets.

The Portughese National Republican Guard managed to interfere and avoid a conflict between the locals and the Romanians, who always seemed to be "barefoot, very dirty, smelly and always hungry", according to Portuguese publication Publico. The employer had to free all 11 Romanians. Some of them expressed the wish of being repatriated.