Tens of police and customs officers were detained by anti-graft prosecutors at customs in West Romania, as part of a cleansing process at Romanian borders. Romania’s Central Bank will withdraw money from the IMF only in emergency cases but for 2011 the state needs current loans of 4 billion euro. Where will the state get the money, one newspaper wonders. When will Romania get rid of operations on surgery tables worth 3 million euro that fall apart is another key question on today’s press.

Evenimentul Zilei reads that the cleansing at Romanian customs continues as promised by President Basescu this weekend and former Interior minister Vasile Blaga. Over 1,000 police officers from various Bucharest police stations, officers and anti-graft prosecutors together with special troops organized a search at 6 AM this morning at Romania’s West borders in Stamora Morvita, Deta and Cruceni and Naidas and Oravita.

Searches were also conducted in several cities across 10 counties and in Bucharest, at the homes of those under investigation – about 100 customs police officers, 30 customs officers and 20 cigarettes smugglers. There are 160 customs police officers at Moravita customs and 150 at Naidas.

According to judicial sources, they will be brought in Bucharest for hearings.

Romania libera wonders where the government will take the 4 billion euro it needs in 2011 if the agreement with the IMF is a precautionary one. The decision of the government to give up the last IMF installment might be a signal of force if financial markets will consider the country fiscally healthy or a signal of panic if investors will consider that the real reason is that Romania did not respect the requirements of the IMF.

This year however Romania needs to take up loans worth 4 billion euro and the interest rate paid will depend by the governmen