Basescu, the retired and the plane

The President of Romania Traian Basescu attended yesterday's Congress to establish the Federation of Romanian Retired Associations and he did it in order o explain his view on the pension law. His messy dialogue with the Romanian retired got applause, opposition and reproaches and it was difficult for the President to keep it under control.
President insists on financial source
The head of state reiterated obsessively his request that the government should mention the financial source for the pension raise due in 2009. He argued: "I can avoid you, if I want to. But I see my mother and parents-in-law every day and it will be hard for me to say 'I lied to you, mother!' " He meant a possibility such as the government not keeping the promise.
The retired would ask him questions at the same time and then they queued for the microphone. One retired woman complained her neighbor's pension was larger and a man who had been a coxswain addressed the President with "Commander" (which pleased him), asking why weren't the additions taken into account for pensions. Basescu suggested they should put it on the Federation's agenda, as he himself would be a beneficiary of it too. The President had several suggestions for the retired there, the most important one pressure on the government so that they would provide a clear and detailed account of the financial sources for the pension raise "Otherwise, you are running the risk of postponements and in the end they will tell you priorities are different", the President concluded.
He thus admitted his concern about the impact of a possibly unkept promise on his own popularity: "My mandate is over in December 2009 and I don't want you to say I lied when promulgating the law." The audience was in frenzy when the head of state announced his preference for the elimination of discrimination from the pension system. He was cheered for "I am a true adept of the unification of the pension system".
Toy aircraft, the Voiculescu kind
But presently things didn't continue as harmoniously. The most embarrassing moment was when he was handed in a paper plane as gift to reproach him for the acquisition of a new presidential aircraft. He commented: "I knew I would get this plane because you talked to Voiculescu and, together with Mr. Iliescu, he encouraged you to do this. But if it is a joke, I give you two more to make. This is the first, maybe there are more coming up".
Still it didn't prevent an elderly lady from reproaching him that the money paid to buy planes could have been used to raise the pensions of the Romanian disabled. Basescu replied: "Nowadays the President flies by a plane built 32 years ago. I don't know how many Romanians would step on such a plane".
The retired attending the meeting were also displeased with the President's reticence to the redistributing of some funds set for development to the social insurance budget. "Money has been wasted on transports", someone cried out in the room.

Adrian Ilie
Ziua Sambata 28 Iulie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

US keeps Romanians waiting at the door

US authorities are working on a surprise for their Romanian strategic allies. Together with Poland, Romania may be excluded from the Visa Waiver program that eliminates the visa compulasory if you want to pay a visit to the US. This is because the number of dismissed petitions is over the 10% limit admitted. Warsaw officials expressed disappointment last Thursday, but Bucharest authorities seem to be still working on a response. So far Romania's foreign minister Adrian Cioroianu has just recommended the Romanians wishing to travel to America to ask for visas, provide complete documentation for it and leave the US territory on time.
The International Herald Tribune reported on it yesterday, explaining the solicitations for visas in the two states exceed the 10% limit set in the draft on the Visa Waiver expansion. The number of solicitations for US visas in Romania and Poland is larger than 25%.
According to the statistics in the US State Department, provided by the office of independent senator Joe Lieberman who chaired talks on the final version of this law, in the first 6 months of 2007 countries such as Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and Hungary didn't meet the requirement. The International Herald Tribune mentions Bucharest and Warsaw are special cases, because the number is over 25%. On the other hand the Czech Republic, Estonia and South Korea meet the US criteria to join the Visa Waiver, the report outlines.
Last Thursday the US Senate passed the final version of this draft on security and visas are no longer required from the citizens of some states who want to travel to the US. The House of Representatives was to pass the draft too yesterday and the President George W. Bush is to promulgate it. (...)

A.M.L.
Ziua Sambata 28 Iulie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

High officials, secret emails

One more scandal is making spirits hot in Romania. The private and even very private emails of some high officials were intercepted, then disclosed and then talked about publicly. The reply or the explanation has consisted in the insistent invocation of fraud, which is indeed true, and of the interference in the private life sanctuary. This second point is arguable, especially in a country where the intercepting of mail and phone calls has been a permanent and troubling possibility. Is there a real moral difference between the indiscretion of the secret services, meant for possible blackmails (any person who becomes an official gets subject to it, theoretically) and the indiscretion of an individual turned into a prosecutor and addressing public opinion as jury ? Both types are to be blamed. The potential victims' abnormal, implicit acquiescence is noteworthy in the first case and, in the second one, this brings their protests to derision.
Of course everyone has got the right to respect for their private lives. But on the other hand, a public official, who is the object of all sorts of curiosity due to the nature of his position, must make sure that his private life is inviolable. By protecting himself and avoiding making way for such intrusions, all he does is protect his country, after all. The fact that fragments of some high officials' privacy could be on display for the public eye (probably by primitive technical means) shows their lack of caution. As far as state interests are concerned, this is a lot more severe than the indelicacy of the person who grabbed and got them printed. When a public official, and a diplomat in particular, is guilty of lacking caution, he/ she is no longer worthy of title or official position. And the trust invested in him/ her becomes pointless. To use an ordinary email address, violable by anyone, for messages meant to be confidential is an infantile mistake. Had it happened somewhere else, it would have interrupted the respective people's careers at once.
This unspeakable prose (let me briefly and sadly notice our superiors' so plain style) was certainly translated and read in certain offices of some foreign capital cities some time go. The bad reputation we thus build ourselves in the world and our officials' vulnerable image should have been the first things to trouble us, but not the publication of their poor dialogues in the Romanian press! In case where it was first read the Romanian representatives' mail caused explainable stupor, it is not only because of its contents, which is in between fishy and ridiculous, but first of all because of the spontaneity due to which the emails sent by unsafe ways offered themselves to the eyes of those interested and somehow skilled.
Apart from the moral, juridical or deontological aspects involved, this affair leaves observers, the foreign ones in particular, with the unpleasant feeling that this is because of amateurishness. Therefore we have once again managed not to let down those watching us, ready for critique.

Radu Portocala
Ziua Sambata 28 Iulie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english