Romania on the threshold of EU membership
At the end of 1999, after active participation in the settlement of the Kosovo conflict, Romania, along with Bulgaria, received an invitation to begin negotiations on EU membership. And already in February 2000, Brussels recognized these countries as meeting the political criteria of the Union.
However, due to the lag in implementing the necessary reforms, Romania and Bulgaria were not admitted to the EU in May of last year along with the ten - Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Malta and Cyprus. According to the decision of the European Union, approved in December 2004 by the heads of state and government of 25 countries, accession negotiations with both countries should begin at the end of April 2005. The European Commission report states that Romania and Bulgaria can join the EU on 1 January 2007, since they meet the economic criteria.
Romania, which is sometimes called a fragment of the Roman Empire, having preserved, despite the Orthodox faith, its commitment to the Latin alphabet, has long tried in every way to demonstrate its "usefulness" to the European Union. It is extremely loyal to the EU leaders and their policy in the Balkan region, and is especially drawn to Germany. The largest country in Southeastern Europe in both territory and population, a large market of cheap labor, unlike other European states, is rich in natural resources.
Here are located huge forest massifs, covering the entire Carpathians, and most of the sources of mineral water on the European continent. European travel companies are already planning to organize resorts in Romania, no worse than Austrian or Swiss ones. The port of Constanta - one of the largest on the Black Sea - can serve as the maritime gateway of the EU, through which the Romanians, with the support of Western capital, are ready to transport oil and gas from Azerbaijan to Europe.
Despite the fact that Romania has been recognized as a country with a market economy, it faces a very large amount of work on improving the national economy so that it becomes more resilient to the pressure of the European market. After all, Romania still remains perhaps the poorest country in Eastern Europe, and moreover, populated by many ethnic minorities. Social benefits are at almost the lowest level in Europe.
Following the recommendations of international donor organizations and the EU, Bucharest was forced to close many production facilities, depriving thousands of citizens of work. Slightly less than half of Romania's population is employed in agriculture and lives in great poverty. The EU's strict demands for the liberalization of the food market will inevitably lead initially to the mass ruin of peasants, and therefore to new social misfortunes, which is now very alarming for the Romanians.
Together is more profitable than apart
In order to dispel citizens' concerns about possible financial difficulties after joining the European Union, the European Institute of Romania published an analytical report at the end of last year, according to which the country will directly receive much more from the EU than it will spend after joining the European community.
Thus, Romania's contribution to the European Union for the first three years after accession will be €2.5 billion, but the country will receive 11 billion from Brussels. Half of this amount will be used for targeted payments during 2007-2009, and the rest will be spent on specific projects for regional and agricultural development. According to calculations by Romanian economists, joining the EU as a whole could cost the country €14.5 billion over the first three years, including direct contributions to the EU budget and participation in community programs. However, according to calculations by the aforementioned institute, much larger amounts from the Union budget will be used for transport - €28.9 billion (from 2004 to 2018), and environmental protection - €29.5 billion (from 2004 to 2021).
To carry out radical reforms, without which EU accession would be impossible, the Union has already allocated assistance in the amount of €4.6 billion and will add another €6 billion.
The accession of Romania is lobbied by other countries of the Romance group - France, Spain, Portugal, as well as Greece, which on its own initiative helps both Romania and other Balkan states in accordance with the "Greek Plan for the Economic Reconstruction of the Balkans". In turn, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands believe that there is no need to rush. What frightens Europeans?
First, not everyone wants a huge flow of immigrants from Romania to pour into Europe. Today, already from three to four million Romanians are working in Italy, Portugal, Spain and other EU countries. From 2001 to 2003, Romanians working in Europe officially transferred €4 billion to the country. This is one of the main reasons for a certain slowdown in its admission to the EU.
Second, the mentality and national aspirations of the Romanians are ambiguous. In Romania, extreme nationalists are still very strong, having taken second place in the parliamentary elections, who would not mind creating a "Greater Romania", including the lands of all of Moldova, Ukrainian Bukovina and Bessarabia, Bulgarian Southern Dobruja, and part of Serbian Vojvodina. The most complex is the problem of Transylvania, where a significant part of the population comprises ethnic Hungarians. Until recently, there were many Germans there, but after the fall of the Ceausescu regime they mostly moved to Germany, and after them, to the horror of the inhabitants of the prosperous Federal Republic of Germany, a significant part of the Gypsies. (In total, according to various estimates, there were from 500 thousand to 1.5 million of them in Romania.)
The Magyars, however, are not moving anywhere, but are drawn to Hungary, which has already joined the EU. Romanian nationalists predict that after joining the Union, entire regions of Transylvania, relying on the legislation of the European Union, will actually slip out of Bucharest's control, and a "little Chechnya" of their own will emerge in Europe.
Europe is displeased by the very tolerant attitude of the Romanian authorities towards the high level of corruption, non-observance of democratic freedoms, including media freedom, political interference in judicial affairs (ill-treatment of the population in police stations), non-observance of children’s rights (“export of children”) and much more.
According to Romanian political scientists, 75% of property and mass media are controlled by local officials and businessmen representing the party in power. The population, as a rule, is poorly informed about the “blunders” of the authorities and is mainly concerned with survival issues.
Inequality will have to be fought
Surprisingly, even at the beginning of the 20th century the situation in Romania was very similar: Parisian chic and ostentatious wealth of courtiers, latifundists and oil barons who lived in luxurious palaces and mansions. Lush parks, cozy restaurants, cafes, an excellent opera house in the center of the “little Paris,” as Romanians call their capital. Elegant outfits of those riding in expensive carriages along the beautiful chestnut-lined Kiseleff Avenue or vacationing at the Sinaia mountain resort. And the shameful poverty of the country’s main population, which fed mainly on cornmeal mush, for which they received from their own people the contemptuous nickname “mamaliga eaters.”
Having overthrown, to the joy of the majority, King Michael I in 1947 (the Romanian dynasty of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen is one of the branches of the Hohenzollerns, Prussian kings), who fought on Hitler’s side, and nationalized oil derricks, the Romanians launched drilling machines and managed to build a fairly strong economy. But the communist elite, having felt itself in the role of a new nobility, also failed to solve most social problems, becoming entangled in numerous debts on loans. The collapse of the USSR caused a revolution in Romania, after which the economy was finally destabilized: industry slowly died, and in the provinces again — in the 21st century! — horse-drawn transport began to be used.
My early childhood in the 1960s was spent at the USSR embassy in Bucharest, where my father worked. I still remember how our train from Moscow was accompanied by hungry children who rushed to the windows shouting: “Pâine! Pâine!” — “Bread! Bread!” In the mid-1990s I again had to travel by train through Romanian territory, and again children who did not look sufficiently well-fed rushed to the windows, although they now asked for candy. Abandoned children are a problem of Romania inherited from the times of Ceaușescu. At that time, abortions were banned in the country, and due to poverty and prejudice against illegitimate children, more than 100 thousand babies ended up in state care and were kept in terrible conditions. Although the procedure for adoption of Romanian children by foreigners initially eased the problem, it quickly moved from humanitarian to a highly lucrative business.
Having signed a moratorium on international adoptions in 2001, Romania continued the “export of children.” According to information available to the European Commission, from 1989 to the present, about 30 thousand children have been taken out of Romania, and the earnings of organized crime involved in this business reach €50,000 per child.
Romanian opposition parties are weak and fragmented, unable to muster enough votes to bring a vote of no confidence in the government. Former Prime Minister A. Năstase limited himself to declarations, diplomatic activities and ostentatious reorganizations. For example, having dismissed the Minister of Justice, he transferred him to the apparatus of the presidential administration, and so on. European Union experts recognized as erroneous the tactic of preparing Romania for EU accession (training and internship of officials in European structures — twinning), which works well in other countries. As it turned out, even those sections of legislation (22 out of 30) on which negotiations have already been held are not implemented in practice. Moreover, the money already allocated by Europe did not move the solution of the problem forward. In this regard, the European Commission proposed to replace the model of Romania’s accession to the Union.
In January 2005, the European Parliament adopted a resolution criticizing Romania’s accession to the EU, calling for a review of the position on accepting this Balkan state into the Union. Parliament supported by 374 votes the demand for large-scale changes, without which Romania’s admission to the Union would become problematic. The rapporteur for Romania at the meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs on February 20, 2005, Baroness Emma Nicholson, proposed monitoring Romania, in particular on the implementation of already agreed articles of European legislation. This has so far had no precedent in the history of EU enlargement.
However, according to most experts, the process of integration into the European Union is not only a goal for Romania itself, but also the main instrument for reforming Romanian society. Brussels pins its hopes for rapid change on the victory in the second round of the presidential elections of Bucharest mayor Traian Băsescu, a 53-year-old candidate from the center-right alliance of Social Democrats and the “Humanist Party.” A former naval officer who entered politics only 14 years ago, he managed to create the image of a pro-Western politician who resolutely and even ruthlessly fights the system. However, he also shows loyalty to the nationalist party “Greater Romania.”
Europe’s interest in Romania as one of the key states of the Black Sea region will help it, having overcome the difficulties of the transition period, to count on the warmest disposition. For the Romanian people, whose voice is still very weakly heard, the pro-Western course of a new generation of democratic leaders could become a starting point in creating a prosperous and more just society, and the greatness of the country will lie in its ability to become a truly full member of the European Union, united by a common constitution.