Romania is mocked upon by The Economist weekly for the new tourism brand. The article reads that the attempt to get the attention of tourists through a campaign that took off with a plagiarism scandal is not the best way but in Romania it might work.

A Belgian designed ceded, two years ago to a visual data base the copy rights over the drawing used in the new tourism brand by Romania. A part of the tourism brand logo is almost identical with a logo used by other European countries.

The scandal of the bad luck leaf follows less than a month from the European Commission's report, where the EU criticized the judicial reforms and the anti-corruption measures in Romania warning that the Government breaches its committments assumed at accession.

The company responsible for the brand, THR TNS, a Spanish British association claims that any resemblance is a coincidence. However, Tourism minister Elena Udrea ceased all payments to the company until the problem will be resolved even though the image will still be used.

Romania's tourism brand, the article reads, with the slogan Explore the Carpathian garden was launched last week but even before the launch, several Romanian bloggers warned that a part of the logo is almost identical with the British company Change Transport.