Basescu said the Jurnalul National article was basically one fat lie. To this statement, the author of that article gives his own reply
Upon his return Friday from a trip abroad, President Traian Basescu made strong statements against the alleged media attacks targeting himself and his family. Jurnalul National was one of the media outlets mentioned in Basescu's speech, for an article published in its Friday issue, detailing the businesses ran by Basescu's family between 1994 and 2001.
Basescu said the Jurnalul National article was basically one fat lie.
To this statement, the author of that article gives his own reply:
• The President should recall his own statements regarding the prosperity his family arrived at while running the now famous ice-cream factory;
• I am not a partner of Mugur Ciuvica, of the Group for Political Investigation. I had no connections, ever, with this organization. I met Ciuvica only once, some seven years ago;
• I never stated that the bank credit which the company owned by the President's brother and wife took in 1994 would have been provided via the PHARE funding. The credit was granted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, or EBRD, at a lower interest rate than on the free market – a preferential treatment the President failed to address in his public statement. He also failed to mention that the collateral for this credit was the apartment he owned in Constanta city, and that he paid the credit back with a delay;
• In 1997 the Government adopted and emergency ordinance annulling debts some companies had to the Rural Bank şlater bought by Raiffeisen Bank, Austriaţ. I did not say the President, then the Transportation minister, actually initiated the ordinance. But I did say that the President used his position to get the company owned by
