ROMANIA: President Basescu Puts Order in Government’s Yard

President Traian Basescu slaps the Government again
2005-08-12 11:57:12

In spite of the fact that only one day before, one could read headlines mentioning that the head of state had returned from holiday, yesterday, the President made another surprising gesture, in a press statement at Cotroceni during which he was drawing the Government attention to having deviated from some commitments taken during the election campaign, asking it to keep these promises. The head of state came with concrete action lines for the Government, such as meeting some due promises or changing laws from health, energy or business environment field.

Basescu appreciated the protocol signed on Wednesday evening by the Coalition’s leaders, but he emphasised that they had to meet the commitments written in the document. “I would like to think that this protocol is going to be observed, unlike the first one”, the President affirmed. He announced that he would ask the requirement coming from some Coalition parties to have meetings at Cotroceni. “But this meeting has to be prepared, because I do not to work on image issues during these meetings. The four Coalition parties must first settle some commitments made in the election campaign period”, Basescu declared. The head of state assured that Government would have his support conditional upon observing some commitments, made during the campaign, which appear to have been overlooked. “Government has my support as long as it does not come with laws for the political clientele. The major priority of the Alliance this year is to change laws from health and energy. These are issues we have been complaining of during the campaign and which we have come to like once being in power”, Basescu said. He again spoke strongly against those groups of economic interests that influence the Executive’s decisions. “I am not hostile to the business community, at all. But from this aspect up to serving the interests of a small group, there is a world of difference. This difference is called influence trafficking by the Criminal Code, and it is not the same thing as lobbying”, the President warned.

Issues due One of the things Basescu asked the Government was to change the law on hospitals. Basescu considers that a change to this law should address conflicts of interest so that it would ban hospital’ managers from being MPs and presidents of Health Insurance Houses or clinics managers. The President is also unhappy with the policy pursued by the Government in energy. He affirms that there is no free competition yet in the energy market. “I find hardly admissible for Hidroelectrica to classify those contracts by means of which it supplies energy to business operators”, Basescu mentioned. He drew the Executive’s attention that the Ordinance by means of which 8 per cent of Petrom shares are assigned to employees is a commitment that must be observed and one should take appropriate measures for these shares to be indeed owned by the employees.

The President makes the meeting with the Government conditional also on another aspect: changing strategy in the customs points. “I propose the Government to put forward, for competition purposes, shortly, all the customs heads offices”, the President affirmed, emphasising that the principle used in this field was “to change the persons put in place by the outgoing power with persons put in place by the current power”. The threatening journalist ask to disclose his identity Related to the scandal around the mysterious journalist, who has threatened him, Basescu did not want to reveal his identity. “I ask the journalist who did this, if he is still responsible for what he did, to do this. I did not take his threat that he as a threat against national security”, Basescu declared.

by Alina Grigoras Source: Nine O’Clock

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