Merkel demands that debts to German firms be paid

Germany's powerful chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday demanded in her meetings with Premier Emil Boc and with President Traian Băsescu that the Romanian state should pay its debts to German firms and give German ethnics their properties back fast. Germany is Romania's leading commercial partner (13 billion euros worth of trade in 2009) and the second-biggest foreign investor (over 7.5 billion euros), but political relations have not been the most cordial despite both governments being right-of-centre over the last few years. Relations were better during the Năstase government, when Germany was led by social-democratic chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The Germans do not seem to have forgotten that in 2005 Deutsche Bank lost the race to take over the BCR (biggest bank in Romania), with the bank ending up in the hands of Austria's Erste following the modification of the privatisation contract.