Udrea commission to start work next Tuesday

Documents at the Ministry of Tourism (MT) prove that Elena Udrea will be taken to task for the huge price the ministry paid to rent some stages for Easter concerts at the seaside, according to yesterday’s issue of ‘Cotidianul’ daily newspaper. The reception minutes no 512/22.04.2009 of the contract between MT and MediaPro Pictures shows that the ministry paid EUR 64,468 (VAT included) for the concerts at Mamaia, April 18 and 19. ‘Cotidianul’ hired experts to assess whether the costs are fair. Social-Democrat Deputy Victor Socaciu, who relies on a 30-year experience in the entertainment industry, described the costs as ‘overvalued by 60 per cent.’ Maria Apostol, a MediaPro Pictures official, holds that the company got the MT deal after ‘it participated in a tender with other companies.’ She also said that ‘MediaPro Pictures received the amount of money specified in the contract.’


The first session of the Udrea Commission is scheduled to take place Tuesday, 11.00 am, when there will be established the operating regulations, working schedule and the documents required from the Tourism Ministry.


Udrea and Tolontan wage war in the media


Early this week, the Parliament voted to set up a probing commission for Tourism Minister Elena Udrea, following an investigation conducted by ‘Gazeta Sporturilor’ (GSP) newspaper referring to the daily sums paid by the Ministry to journalists during trips abroad. This incident sparked a full-scale war of statements between the minister and Catalin Tolontan, the editor-in-chief of ‘Gazeta Sporturilor.’ First, the journalist accused Udrea on Realitatea TV of threatening him, while the minister retorted in her blog that Tolontan had personal interests in promoting the Ridzi scandal.


“In the media and in politics, there is a rumour that he had a direct interest for a company close to him, interested to obtain a printing contract from the state,” Udrea says. “After that, Mr. Tolontan told Realitatea TV I threatened him that I will plot against him based on intelligence information…” Udrea explains on her blog. The PD-L minister went on, saying that she learned about the whole matter from Mircea Badea, the protagonist of a show aired by Antena 3 – a TV channel belonging to the same media trust as Gazeta Sporturilor: “I must confess that I got the information from his colleague Mircea Badea, who said last week, on Antena 3: .” Answering the accusation, Tolontan said: “I wage no war against Mrs. Udrea, but I won’t accept a minister who thinks she is the boss of a citizen who pays her. I will retort each time I encounter such a situation. We wrote that TV channels sold news and stories, we wrote that one of Dan Voiculescu’s companies took money in the Ridzi affair, so we won’t take lessons from politicians. We got used to accept offences against this profession and this is not right,” Tolontan added.