The employees of the Bihor-based Petrolsub Suplacu de Barcau refinery yesterday started marching towards Bors border point saying they wanted to emigrate to Hungary.
They are angry with not having got work for some six months, ever since Societatea Nationala a Petrolului (the National Oil Company-SNP) Petrom stopped supplying the refinery with crude, due to the company's debts of more than 400 billion lei to Petrom.
"The workers can no longer bear the situation, they've been waiting for something positive to happen for six months now. We've all decided to go to Hungary, request employment permits and work there.
Furthermore my workers said that when the next census was performed, they would say they are Hungarians so that they could go to work there, as nobody cares about them in their own country," said Gheorghe Zmolea, the leader of the workers. The protesters' line, comprised of more than 100 vehicles, was stopped in Sarsig, as requested by the authorities.
"The moment the last car transporting workers abroad crosses the Romanian border to Hungary, we will begin procedures to shut down the refinery," PM Adrian Nastase yesterday said.
"It is outrageous to make the entire Romanian people pay for the owners at Suplacu de Barcau, who felt they could no longer put the necessary pressures and made workers get in their cars and head off to Hungary to state they want certificates to prove they are Magyars," Nastase added.
He specified he could not possibly agree with the protest of the workers of a company refusing to pay its 430bn lei in debts, expecting to benefit from Petrom's services free of charge.
Petrom took the same stand and accused the refinery representatives of not accepting the solutions proposed to resume crude deliveries.
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