Rompetrol President Funds His Political Friends

Prosecutors investigating Dinu Patriciu, president of the Rompetrol oil group, for his alleged manipulation of the bourse which caused investors to loose money, are now looking into the cash flowing from Rompetrol into the pockets of his political friends in the Liberal Party, via the bank accounts of non-governmental organizations.

The political friends funded by Rompetrol more often than not supported Patriciu publicly, while the prosecutors’ investigation was ongoing.

Among the top names stand out those of Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, minister of foreign affairs; Crin Antonescu, head of the liberal group in the House; Catalin Harnagea, former head of the Intelligence Service; Dorin Marian, former presidential adviser; and Cosea Dumitru, Andrei Alexandru, Valean Adina, Radu Boroianu, Pavel Antoniu, Cojocaru Wanda.

The money flowing into the accounts of the non-governmental organization the Institute for Liberal Initiative, or ILI, amount to 10.41 million lei sEUR1=RON t, plus RON5.38 million, plus RON0.53 million, plus $1.45 million.

The ILI has on its board Patriciu, Antonescu, Cristian Boureanu, Dan Radu Rusanu, and Premier Calin Popescu Tariceanu.
The NGO used the money arriving into its accounts to pay all the above mentioned public figures, the daily Ziua, and a cluster of other foundations and NGOs, most of which ended their activity after the liberals won the 2004 elections along the other coalition partners.

The other foundations are ICAR, Mathesis, Lambda, and Danubius. The first three of them dealt with media-monitoring, media analyses, market research and marketing, and organized conferences.

The Horia Rusu Foundation also got funding via the ILI accounts. On its board stay, again, top Liberal Party members: Patriciu, Popescu Tariceanu, Boureanu and Bogdan Olteanu, the current House Speaker.

The first to make public the money-link between so called independent thinkers, Liberal Party members and Patriciu, and to label it as a special interest group was Elena Udrea, the former presidential adviser.

Since resigning her position a few months ago, Udrea became a more vocal promoter of president Traian Basescu’s views, than during the time she was in office. Udrea was the first to articulate a few months ago - on Antena 3 television channel, a member of the same media group Jurnalul national belongs too -, that more than friendship was prompting liberals to support Patriciu. The names she named were those of Popescu Tariceanu, Antonescu, Rusanu, Olteanu, Norica Nicolai, and Ludovic Orban.

Thus, the long-lasting feud between the major ruling coalition partners - the Democrat Party, formerly led by Basescu, and the Liberal Party, headed by Popescu Tariceanu - continues on the field of the prosecutors’ investigation into the financial deals made by Patriciu.