On Saturday while in Miercurea Ciuc minister Bogdan Olteanu opined that "a fusion of Conservatives and Liberals would be a positive change to improve the Coalition's activity and simplify the range of Romanian politics." Olteanu explained this conclusion was grounded on the Conservatives' liberalism-orientation and their affiliation to European Liberal structures. The Liberal minister also mentioned that there were signs from the Conservatives that they started to seriously consider eventual fusion with the Liberals. "Of course we will inform our colleagues in case such a process starts, but for the time being this is just my personal opinion. No process has started, there is not decision of the Liberals that we want to do this, but I think we should do it." He outlined that the representatives of the two parties had had no formal talks that far. We remind you that ZIUA has recently published an article on the two parties' eventual fusion. At that time the Conservatives' leaders denied such hypothesis and they even complained against ZIUA to the Romanian Press Club, claiming this daily lacked deontology. Yesterday the Conservatives kept on denying the existence of projects or talks on fusion, despite minister Olteanu's explicit statements. Yesterday Conservatives' spokesman Bogdan Ciuca said that his group didn't even think about having talks on fusion with some other group, mainly the Liberal one, because this would cause his party to lose identity. Ciuca commented: "We can talk about collaboration and reliable support with Coalition parties. But projects or talks about fusion are out of question." Ciuca also mentioned that the Conservatives' Foreign Affairs Department was to elaborate analysis on the Conservatives' affiliation to some European right-center group, as this was the only priority for political collaboration. (Valentina DELEANU) �