E.U. entrance – Nice but not what I wanted

Did I tell you? More or less Romanians in Bucharest returned back to work last Monday, January 14th, this was the longest vacation that the majority of population ever had. How do I know? From the traffic… You were able to cross the city in 15 minutes. Now, this is “history”…

One year back – E.U entrance: “Nice but not what I wanted”

It was just a year ago that Romania entered in European Union. The night of 31st of December 2006 the party was one of the biggest and shiniest in Romanian history. Joe Cocker was on stage singing in the center of the city. It was really amazing, all the central boulevards (Laskar Catargiu, Magheru, Balcescu and I.C. Bratianu, the 3 boulevards that connect Victoriei Square with Unirii Square) were full of light and the fireworks shifted night to day!

Romanian politicians have invested a lot in the E.U. entrance and people were very eager to feel members of E.U. We cant really say that they had to suffer a lot for this, because the measures taken for the adjustment with the European standards rather helped the society and the economy than caused problems. Today the country moves fast to the future, not because it received so far any serious E.U. funds, but because the business environment has become very good to do business and it attracted endless billions of euros. The legislation, the fiscal code and the urbanistic system are the major advantages of the country. Ofcourse they are not ideal, they can be improved more. But, the route to E.U. has transformed the country from an “old fashioned ex communistic country” to a “friendly place for the foreigners, with an environment that promotes and helps business being done really easily”.

This happened very fast. Imagine that just 5 years ago, noone believed that the country would really enter in E.U. last year. Noone and especially not the Romanian citizens. The progress is so fast that they still have not adopted it yet. If we exclude a minority of 10%, in the beginning for the majority of the population E.U. was presented and understood by them as the ultimate solution for all their problems. When they started understanding that “this is not exactly the case”, they became more suspicious. They like to be in, they enjoy the fact that they are “members of European community”, but still they want MUCH more, they find it as “good but not what I want”. And the biggest problem of all: They get disappointed when they realize that E.U. can guide you, but it cant solve all your problems, it cant replace the bad politicians, it cant change bad mentalities, existing for decades.

Tomorrow: The categories I see today in Romanian society, also matching them with their way of understanding European Union.