Swiss voted "yes"

Today has been a pretty important day for us, Romanians as we have finally been recognized as EU member country. This means that we are moved from the category "other countries" into the category "new EU member countries" when it comes to being granted a residence or a work permit. 

This is a good news, since it shows that Swiss acknowledge the fact that they are in need of work force. However, the result is to be seen in the light of an important specification: should the treaty have not been agreed on, all the other treaties regarding the free movement of persons between the EU and Switzerland would have been null. 

However, the the Neuer Zürcher Zeitung says: 

"Für manche Rumänen steht das anbrechende Zeitalter der Freizügigkeit innerhalb der EU und auch der Schweiz angesichts der akuten Image-Probleme ihres Landes unter einem schlechten Stern. Solche Überlegungen trüben ihre Freude über den Ausgang der Volksabstimmung in der Schweiz." (am 9. Februar 2009)

This paragraph draws attention to the importance of country brand. What is known today about Romania in the EU and in Switzerland can be summarized under the following statement: poor, third world country, where people have difficulties even to afford enough food, gipsy, dark skinned, and on the more positive side, lower salary demand in EU standards, hard working. 

However, very little or nothing is known about the country. Dividing on the EU citizen's imagination, Romania could be drawn as:

- a slavic land, having a language similar to Russian

- rich in natural beauty and virgin lands

But we know that Romania is more than this. So, we'd better not wait for a national branding campaign to be launched on CNN and use the word of mouth to advertise our country. 

GDL Seminar in Sinaia

DISCOVER REGHIN'S HEART

These days I’ve been taking part at a three-day seminar on the topic of why and how local authorities should include communities in the strategy development process. Besides the theoretical aspects discussed, I have left from this seminar with the following take-outs or better said observations:

About Reghin’s development potential:
- There is limited will to bring significant, beneficial changes to the town and the ones who are committed to it, namely young, motivated individuals, are being suppressed.
- High ranked local authorities are half willing to bring a significant change and are concerned only about political games.

About local public authorities in Romania, in general:
- As the salary for the ones working in a public authority is uncompetitive with the one in the private sector, the most motivated and knowledgeable people avoid taking a public job and leave for another job in the private sector as soon as an opportunity comes along.
- Generally, people working in the public local authorities lack the will to drive a significant long-term change for the city they administer.

As such, a city can significantly change only when:

- There’s a strong will coming from high ranked local authorities, which are committed to bring about a change
- Motivated individuals are rewarded accordingly based on performance and merit and not on hierarchy
- Public authorities should collaborate with NGOs and other representatives of the civil society in order to receive more feedback from the town’s residents and consult them in important matters concerning the town’s development.
- NGOs could play the role of the intermediary between the local authorities and the citizens, could educate the citizens regarding issues such as how to preserve historical areas. Furthermore, NGOs could be used to consult citizens and to explain to the citizens in plain language the development proposals coming from the authorities.

A political view on Switzerland

On February, the 8th. 2009, the Swiss will decide through a referendum whether they agree or not to enlarging free movement of EU citizens to Romania and Bulgaria. Basically, this treaty facilitates the easiness of a Romanian or Bulgarian citizen to reside in Switzerland. Until now in order to reside in Switzerland for more than three months, a Romanian citizen needed to submit a visa application in his/her country of origin and after receiving this visa he/she was allowed to apply for a residence permit. Under the new law, the same citizen won't have to apply for a visa in his/her country of origin anymore. Thus, the process of receiving a residence permit is simplified.

Furthermore, the free movement law has provisions regarding the right to asylum and immigration policy. Without going into details, I will tackle each of SVP's (the Swiss People's Party) accusations.

1. More job losses - The Labour Ministry in Switzerland pointed several times to the fact that Switzerland needs more people on certain job areas and that EU and especially the new EU countries are a qualified source for such labor. Thus, the extension of this treaty facilitates job occupation and does not lead to job losses.



2. Lower wages - At least in the last two years since I have been living in Switzerland, the average wage is steadily increasing and not decreasing. Furthermore, there is high transparency regarding average levels of salaries depending on industry and qualification and a provision regarding minimum wage. Added to this, the Romanian and Bulgarian citizen that SVP is afraid of (aka the low qualified) do not compete for the same jobs as the Swiss. Thus, the extension of the free movement of persons positively affects the labor market and not negatively in the medium and long run.

3. Empty accounts of the Agency for Jobless - In line with the argumentation at point 2, the free movement of persons through more job occupation brings additional revenues to the Agency for Jobless. Furthermore, even if on short - term more persons from the two countries will be tempted to move to Switzerland, and thus the costs might increase short term, they will be out-weighted by the additional revenue from new occupied jobs.

4. Ruined social security - Even if theoretically more immigrants increases the need for social security, the pile of documents necessary for applying for this is so big and the process so complicated that few of the immigrants are able to make such requests. As will be discussed below, in order for everyone (EU and Switzerland) to win, what Switzerland should do is cooperate and not close itself. Remember the prisoner's dilemma.

5. Increased criminality - It is true that more persons will be tempted to go to Switzerland. However, even now it is possible to enter Switzerland without a visa if you stay less than three months. And I doubt that those categories of people that SVP is afraid of will ever state now that they want to stay longer. Consequently, it depends on the check control at the borders whether they allow those categories of people to enter Switzerland or if they submit them to a harsher control. Furthermore, through collaboration with the Romanian and Bulgarian authorities, the criminals could be tracked easier and their liberty of movement restricted. However, what I cannot agree with is for an entire nation to suffer because of some pick pocket criminals or beggars which are unrepresentative for the entire population.

6. Decreased democracy - On February the 8th, Swiss will have to vote for two things: to prolongs the existing free movement treaty with the EU and to extend it to Romania and Bulgaria, the two new EU countries. As the two countries are already EU members, it is actually one issue to be voted for, and that is the prolongement of the treaty. Thus, there are no two different issues to be discussed and thus one vote is enough.

7. Pressure from the EU and the Swiss Parliament - SVP suggests a separation of the voting in two issues: prolongement of the treaty as it is valid now, and as a different issue the extension of the treaty to Romania and Bulgaria. However, as argued above, to restrict the rights of two EU countries only because they are new is hazardous. Other solutions should be found to fight against the small criminality. In this, cooperation and not isolation is the solution.

All in all, the arguments brought about by the SVP are light hearted, to say at least. Their overall position is against EU and for a closed Switzerland, which is an undesired situation economically speaking. See my post on "Switzerland closes itself again" for additional arguments regarding this topic as well as the following links:

Ausländische Arbeitskräfte
Offene Stellen

Sustainability of the third way

Yesterday I was talking about how German women give up their careers entirely in order to have a family and about the predominance of the men in the German business landscape.

In the last two days I've faced a totally different model, usually called in economics "the third way". Namely it is the economic model of the Scandinavian countries. This model is characterized by solidarity, an extensive social system financed through a high income taxation on level.

So is it efficient?

At the first view it seems to be as streets are clean, transportation system is very developed. What is more, what I found interesting here is the high proportion of young mothers with children. That is with 25 women already have 2 kids. Even if at the first sight this has made a strong impression on me, I found three explanations for this phenomenon.

1) The extensive social system that I was previously talking about supports young people to have children early in their adult lives.

2) There is a different mentality that I've encountered in these countries. People get together and form a couple and then a family early in their lives, but in 60% of cases these relationships end.

3) The labor market is flexible enough to offer different possibilities to work through: part time and flexible time working, teleworking or other forms of working from home.

All these encourage couples to have a family soon enough as, contrary to Romania, they don't have think of the financial challenges. The state has sufficient resources to support them in such cases.

What other explanations do you see to be plausible?

Switzerland closes itself again

Do you remember my post about the the free movement of persons in Switzerland? If you don't, let me shortly remind you. Switzerland has signed several treaties with the EU which are aimed to enhance the businesses between the two parties. One of these treaties is related to the free movement of persons. Switzerland is supposed to prolong the treaty in December, when it will also include on their lists the two newest EU members: Romania and Bulgaria.

Today however, representatives from three parties have gathered enough signatures so that they can now propose in the Parliament a Referendum against this treaty. Probably the proposal won't pass through. Anyway, even the idea that members of three parties have considered taking this action is unbelievable.

In the world economy where Switzerland is one of the countries that benefits the most from the globalization (think of all the multinational companies headquartered in CH), it chooses to initiate such actions that makes it more difficult for the people to settle in the country. In the same line of reasoning, Switzerland needs to understand that it should keep itself open if it doesn't want to bear the consequences of companies leaving it because of its inflexible regulations.

Below you have the opinion of a tabloid newspaper about the free persons movement issue.
For the ones unfamiliar with this story, there is a long rivality between the Swiss and the Germans that is visible even at my university. Why? Germans are accused of coming to Switzerland for studies and then choosing not to leave the country anymore. Furthermore, due to the educational regulations, only 25% of the students may be of foreign citizenship at public universities. This makes to select only the best German students, who after graduation get the jobs of the Swiss. And so goes the story.

Laws with special dedication

Dear all,

While scanning the newspapers today, I discovered an article about how the EU suits Germany for the "VW Law". If you haven't heard of it, the German state released a law which states that 80% of VW shareholders must agree to an acquisition, otherwise it won't happen. And guess what? This makes it practically impossible for VW to ever be taken over as the German Land Lower Saxony controls 20,1% of the shares.

What do you say about this? Apparently it's not only in Romania that the legislators make laws "with special dedication". In fact, it happens in older EU countries, too. So, should we (Romanian citizens) feel relief because it can happen anywhere in the EU?...

Not really. Now that we're in the EU doesn't imply that we should "import" all the customs of the legislators from older EU member countries. What we should do is to keep the straight way and stay "in the light of sincerity". Is that realistic to ask? Not really. However, we can ask from our legislators to think of the benefit of the larger society when they release a law.

Here is the link to the article:
EU suits Germany for the VW Law

More about our image in Switzerland

Dear all,

What?
look at this picture:

This is a sketch from an article published in the French speaking part of Switzerland. The topic was the "liberty of movement", which Switzerland should extend to Romania and Bulgaria.

Once more, this is the perception of some West European countries about Romania. I've discussed on this topic with my roommate, originally from France. She told me that in France Romania is viewed as a third-world country, that doesn't even have universities. Even herself has always thought about Transilvania like a dark place.
Furthermore, while talking to another friend about my home in Reghin, he was surprised at hearing that I have a pond, a waterfall and a pool. I don't wanna know what he imagined about the housing conditions in Romania.

So what?
I believe that it's obvious that we need to do something to show what Romania really is, that is not only gipsies and beggars. Although I personally don't feel that people look down on me because I'm from Romania, sometimes it's clear to me that they have no idea about the country.

How?
What's within my reach is to tell stories, show pictures about my countries and use the word-of-mouth and personal example to change their perceptions.
What are you doing in this regard yourselves?

Bilateral Treaty with the EU on the Freedom of Movement

Dear all,

On the 12th. June, the Swiss Parliament has decided to "pack":
- the extension of the Bilateral Treaty with the EU for the Person Free Movement for the 25 member states
with
- the inclusion in the same treaty of Romania and Bulgaria

I would say that this is a big advancement for Switzerland and we should consider ourselves lucky because if they had voted for having a separate article with Ro and BG, it wouldn't have passed the referendum. O, yes, the referendum, because remember, this is Switzerland, the land that organizes a referendum for everything. :-)
So, having both laws in the same "package" will ensure that the treaty will be accepted by the population.

But, what happens if the population votes "NO"?
For Switzerland, there are very negative consequences that would affect:
- the airspace and air traffic
- technical aspects in the commerce with the EU
- agriculture
- R&D
That having been said, even if it's called Switzerland, they don't afford to become isolated.

L.