'I believe the new government should mark a new beginning based on the successes of the former government, and I mean here the successes in stabilising the country's macroeconomics. We will have the official data in mid-February, when we will see an economic growth of 2.5 percent. We hope the measures in the government programme will generate economic growth in 2012 as well and given this I believe the number one priority of the new government should be to strive to gradually restore the standards of living of Romanians, who have felt the brunt of macroeconomic rebalancing processes. So, the number one priority should be switching to a programme of gradual restoration of the standards of living of the population. Certainly, we cannot discuss the matter before we have the evaluations of the first quarter, that is somewhere this April. In the meantime, things should be projected in positive, medium and pessimistic scenarios to see how we can switch to a programme that will restore the standards of living of the population,' Basescu said Monday evening at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace.

He mentioned that a second important objective the new prime minister should have in mind is Romania meeting its pledges to the world community, including the arrangements with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission.

'The fight against corruption should be continued indiscriminately. Things should be conducted as they have so far, even more efficient, in order to put a halt to corruption, particularly the corruption in the central and local public administrations. At the same time, the rising trends in the absorption of European funds should likewise continue,' said Basescu.

He added that no less important is transparency in the use of public money, as well as jobs creation.AGERPRES