Corruption in Romania - An Article from "The Economist"

Dear all,

While reading the daily RSS News Feed, I've come across an article in The Economist about corruption in Romania. Naturally that I've read it carefully to see what the views of the authors are. To sum it up, it mainly says that the level of corruption in Romania is more acute than what the European Commission states in their periodical reports about Romania's progress. The authors go even further and explain how Romania joined the EU. They mention the help of France who "pushed" Romania on the EU Enlargement Agenda. So, this is what they say. What do I think about this?

First, it is true that the accession of Romania to the EU didn't take place because we really deserved it. However, he did make a lot of progress in the last 18 years since the communism fell. What is more, we are connected to the EU in the values that we share: liberty, respect and tolerance, multiculturalism. The ones among you living in Romania may ask me: where do you see tolerance or multiculturalism? I would simply take the example of Transilvania where Romanians live together with the Hungarian minorities. The Hungarian minorities have the right to education in their own language starting from kindergarten to university level. If you go to the public administration, they will greet and talk to you in both languages. This extends to every shop and stores, from the small boutiques to the shopping malls. Maybe these proofs might not impress my Romanian fellows, but having the example of other European countries, I would say that we handle multiculturalism issues pretty well.

To the corruption issue, I have to be very straightforward and say that I consider this to be the biggest challenge in Romania's changing process. Why? It's not because we haven't seen yet any "high level corruption case" solved. What concerns me are the small corruption acts which take place every day, the so-called "spaga". For this to change, I see the need for a change in the education of people right from school. It's there where small corruption acts begin and that's where you can end it. However, a change in mentality, in not thinking anymore that you might solve your problem easier or quicker if you give the other person "an attention", requires time....time, education and permanent reinforcement of the principle "no gift, no attention needed".

Secondly, it it true that the accession of Romania was mainly due to geopolitical and economic reasons. Geopolitical, because of its location and its access to the Black Sea, which we share with Bulgaria, Ukraine, Georgia and Russia.
The economical reasons are obvious. Being a developing country, almost any market segment that you take is not saturated yet and represents a large potential distribution market for the European companies. Even if the purchasing power is not comparable to the rest of the EU, the quantity (population of 22 mio. inhabitants) compensates for this. Furthermore, there is need for important infrastructure investment, which represents a big opportunity for the European construction companies, given the fact that the EU construction market is stagnating.

Thirdly, looking at the EU overall, if it wants to keep competing with the big world players (US, China), it needs to grow. We see that on average, the "old" EU countries grow with 2%. In comparison to this, because of the "catching up effect", the new EU countries have a growth rate of min. 5-6%.

Finally, I haven't forgotten that the citizens from the old EU countries pay for the development of the "new EU". However, I think that this money have a multiplier effect in terms of investments in the latter, which help the EU companies maintain their competitiveness and the jobs in the old EU countries.

To sum it up, this is the way that I see these problems in Romania. Overall, the information conveyed in the article are true, but they fail to offer an overall picture of what Romania is really like, with its main pluses and minuses. It is exactly this gap that I've tried to cover in this post and I encourage you to write what comes to your mind about the issue. There are also some interesting comments from the readers included in "The Economist" after the article.

Here is the link to the article:
In denial