(story to be published in tomorrow's issue, March 14)
The consensus reached by trade unions, employers associations and political forces on the medium-term economic Strategy, whose final text was to be agreed upon yesterday, seems to be restricted to the phase of macroeconomic reference points, since trade unions strongly oppose concrete issues, such as breaking monopolies in the field of public utilities. "Public utilities restructuring is an issue of debate and is not part of the respective domain," Adrian Vasilescu, an advisor of the Premier, stated on Sunday evening. The Strategy includes only macroeconomic objectives to the very end of obtaining a rapid accord, but for the European Union to take it seriously, it will have to comprise, within its detailed variant, which is to be elaborated by May 15, concrete options as well as to the future of electricity and gas companies. Trade unions have repeatedly and clearly said they were against the privatisation or even splitting of these companies and governmental sources stated that unions would want to block the process for the next ten years. "Conel privatisation would only mean replacing the state monopoly with a private one," Dumitru Chirita, leader of Univers confederation from the National Electricity Company, said at the end of last week. The stance of Chirita is supported even by Dumitru Costin, the leader of one of the most powerful trade unions in the country, the National Trade Unions Block (BNS). As a matter of fact, the pact between trade unions and the administrative leadership is the greatest obstacle in the way of restructuring state monopolies, analysts say. On the other hand, RomTelecom privatisation is unfortunately worse even than the situation Dumitru Chirita wants to protect the Romanian economy against, since the only achievement was a transfer of states holding the monopoly, from the Romanian to the Greek one, with guarantees on the exclusion of other competitors by year 2003. Moreover, the petty sum obtained, standing at only 675 million dollars, and recent complaints about the legality of the privatisation of the company, fully serve, even though from a different point of view, the option of trade unions to block the restructuring and privatisation of public utilities. Despite trenchant statements by trade union members, the Government's representatives are upbeat. "The Executive has agreed with trade unions that after the medium-term strategy is sent to Brussels they would start discussions related to the privatisation strategy linked to national companies holding a state monopoly," Radu Berceanu, Romanian Industry and Trade minister, told Ziarul Financiar. The position of trade unions to delay at any costs the restructuring of former regies autonomes is understandable, analysts consider, since their force consists in the very protection against any kind of restructuring, which would make their own positions shaky. Blocking the privatisation of public utilities for another ten years would mean that discretionary tariffs are to be retained due to a lack of competition, with disastrous effects over consumers through monopoly prices, as well as through the quality of services.
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