Communications Ministry relaunches 10 million euro tender for e-Romania portal, demanding sub-portal for Orthodoxy as "national religion"

Miercuri, 19 august 2009, 15:06 English | Top News

The Communications Ministry relaunched tender amounting to 10 million euro from the state budget to create an e-Romania Internet portal which would allow the payment of taxes and other public services online, according to an announcement made on Wednesday. But the Ministry now demands that the e-Romania portal include an informative sub-portal about the national religion of Romania, despite that the Constitution and the Cults Law say Romania does not have a state religion.

The contract called eRomania1 involves the conclusion of a framework agreement with a single economic body for a period of 45 months and amounts to an estimated 42 million RON, VAT-excluded. According to the tender documentation, the system would be formed of 14 sub-systems conceived as portals dedicated to issues such as Justice, Agriculture, Environment, Transport, SMEs, Public Servants, Tourism, Culture, Statistics, Education, Citizenship, Associations and Health.

But the documentation says that the e-Cultura module dedicated to Culture include among others an informative portal on the national religion of Romania, named "Orthodoxism Online". This comes despite Romania does not have a state religion. Orthodoxy Online would allow online cash donations to churches and would promote the Orthodox religion.