NEW PROTESTS The unionists levying accusations of shady real estate interests in the "affair" of the Port of Constanţa

The unionists of the Port of Constanţa are accusing the local authorities of wanting to pull one last "real estate scheme", through the government's intention to transfer the ownership of 13% of the shares of the Port of Constanţa to the Local Council, said Mircea Burlacu, the representative of the National Federation of Port Unions, who announced a new protest meeting tomorrow, to be held in front of the headquarters of the Mayoralty and of the Prefecture of Constanţa, in continuation of other protests that took place last week.

"This National Company called < Administraţia Porturilor Maritime > (APMC) (ed. note: the Administration Of Maritime Ports) is an authority that has subleased from the Romanian state over 4500 hectares of land", said Mr. Burlacu, who went on to say: "Whoever controls this sublease, has control of the Port.

In 20 years, the State has still not resolved the issue of the sublease of the port to the economic operators".

According to the proposal of the Government, following the transfer, the shareholder structure of the Administration of Maritime Ports would be: The Constanţa Local Council - 33%, the Ministry of Transports - 33%, The Proprietatea Fund - 20% and 14% listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

According to Mr. Burlacu, the purpose of the listing on the stock exchange would be just to get a quotation for the shares of the Port: "Nothing would stop them from trading the shares however they want afterwards. There can be no common interest between the state and the local council. We demand that the state abandon this idea. If they want transparency, they can very easily include the rules of the stock market in the company's bylaws".

Dan Şova recently stated that he has asked the European Commission to issue a ruling on the intention of the Romanian authorities to transfer a block of shares of 13% of the Port of Constanţa to the local administration. He said that the procedures for the transfer once the European Commission rendered its decision was would be subsequently begun to get the permits from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice.

In spite of this, the unionists did not abandon the protests.

"We don't organize our protests around the opinions of Mr. Şova", Mircea Burlacu said. "We are not interested in his opinions".

They also said that the protests have another connotation as well: "We are requesting the dismantling of the Republic of Radu Mazăre!".

Mr. Burlacu derided the comparison of the Port of Constanţa with the resort of Mamaia, made by Constanţa mayor Radu Mazăre.

"We don't want the Port to end up full of bars and teen girls. We don't want to end up being Mazăre's bus boys", the unionist told us.

Last week, mayor Radu Mazăre told the unionists that the port has not developed like it should have in the last 24 years: "If we took a walk through the port and through Mamaia we would find that there is a huge difference when it comes to investments, development, newly created jobs. You are worried you are going to lose your jobs, but our interest is to increase the number of jobs and investments in the port". He also said that the local administration has never had any say in the management of the port since it received the 20% stake and that all the decisions have been made by the Ministry of Transports: "We didn't have any say on the port since we received that 20% stake. The decisions have been made by the Ministry of Transports and they haven't been the best. The port should have been booming just like the resort of Mamaia, where the number of jobs has increased three times and where we can see investments from the Mayoralty, using European grants, as well as those made by private businesses. The number of investments in the port has decreased, whereas in Mamaia it has increased. In 2000, when I became a mayor, there were 10,000-12,000 employees in Mamaia during peak season, now there are 30,000".

Mircea Burlacu told us that he is awaiting for a reaction from Prime Minister Victor Ponta: "We are waiting for Victor Ponta, because he is the head of the Government, the one who holds our fate in his hands, to invite us to have a dialogue. He is probably avoiding our arguments. I see no other reason why he wouldn't meet with us, even though we have asked him to do so countless times".

The protests of the FNSP, which is part of the "Blocul Naţional Sindical" Union Association, are also supported by the "Operatorul Portuar" Constanţa Professional Association.

The port operators united under this professional association account for over 95% of the turnover of all the port operators, according to a press release sent in yesterday.

The "Operatorul Portuar" organization says that it comprises 33 companies that operate in the port business, which employ 6,002 people, or more than 60% of the total number of employees in the port segment.

According to the communiqué, the companies that belong to the Professional Association, through their operations, account for over 85% of the revenues of the Administration of the Port of Constanţa (CN APM), and their contribution to the local budget has been about 2,000,000 Euros in 3 years (2011-2013), which represents approximately 30%, while the contribution to the state budget over the course of three years was 45,000,000 Euros (2011-2013).

The National Federation of Port Unions (FNSP) brings together 26 unions of the workers in the Romanian commercial ports and in ancillary services, and is the only organization that is representative in a sector of over 40,000 employees.

The Ministry of Transports is currently the majority shareholder of the Administration of Maritime Ports of Constanţa, with 60% of the shares. The Proprietatea Fund and the Local Council of the City of Constanţa each hold 20%.