They wonder whether a new government will introduce any further changes to the exams' content or dates.
"We've been guinea pigs our entire lives," complained 18-year-old Robert Ionescu. "Every new education minister decided something else. Honestly, we are afraid of what they might come up with now." Teachers, doctors and civil servants for their part wonder whether they will receive their salaries, on time or at all. Mere hours after Boc said the treasury had enough money to secure salaries and pensions until the end of the year, President Traian Basescu warned that this might not be the case after all, if Romania fails to overcome the political crisis in time and secure the third IMF loan payment later this year. "It is almost irrelevant to talk of an influential Romanian Government. Clearly, it is the IMF that is 'governing' us at the moment," political opinion writer Cristian Tudor Popescu said on the Realitatea network.įor now, union federations representing the 1.4 million state employees have suspended plans for massive strikes, since they say they don't know who to negotiate with anymore. They gave a serious warning 10 days ago when 800,000 people stopped working for a day, protesting low salaries and increasing layoffs. The unemployment rate currently stands at about 7 percent and will grow to 10 percent in the next few months, analysts predict.
It is in this climate of confusion that newly designated Prime Minister Lucian Croitoru - an economist and former IMF representative with no political affiliations - will have to form a new government within 10 days and then hope that parliament approves his cabinet.
That could be a tall order: 65 percent of senators and deputies belong to parties that preferred a different candidate. Presidential elections scheduled for the end of November could lead to another round of changes in the government.