Romanian President Traian Basescu said in an interview with the public television on Thursday night that "we're in a country sentenced to lack of development unless we do what we must do". That is, "reducing social spending (...). Any income must be taxed, including pensions and unemployment assistance", said the head of state. He said that otherwise Romania will have to ask for a new loan in March 2011, which will be reflected in consumption, with which he does not agree. He also accused a Senator of having a "stand against the interest of Romania" with his push for changes to legislation which stripped a key body involved in the fight against corruption of most of its powers.

What Basescu said in the interview for TVR:

On floods

He has noted an aggressiveness among the media since the very beginning of floods, with questions of why he was not present where floods were happening. He said that happened because he had to give priority to approving judicial procedure codes and not because he did not mind about floods or was sick, as speculated by some media.Most of the victims of the floods were victims of their own negligence or of unfortunate eventsThere have been no resources for building dams. The main cause of floods was the lack of works on improving existing dams.It's clear that Romania has extremely limited resources for the time being.

On cutting budget spending and austerity measures

78% of the state budget incomes go to employees in the budget sector and to social spendingSpending has been up more at the level of local administration where autonomy is sort of misunderstood as people there believe they can spend on anything and later ask for investments moneyIt's also true that the government said one thing and did another. This prompts some difficulties in my relations with the government as a wholeThe difficulties appear