Romanian Politics "Europeanization'

Romanian media, civil society leaders and a fair number of Romanian politicians - ruling and opposition politicians alike - have been caught lately in a series of conflicts, scandals and public quarrels with other media, civil society leaders and European or American politicians with regards to the most surprising topics.

Seen from a distance and without prejudice, the entire picture of this state of affairs looks absurd, with the source of irrationality appearing to be located in the West. The West is where requests, demands, criticism, accusations, commendations, condemnations, praises, favorable decisions and appreciation come from in a seemingly random order. Even a brief review of the most significant messages Romania has received from the West creates an astonishing impression:

Romania has been accepted in the Schengen area. Then, Switzerland - one of the most selective countries in the world - lifted the mandatory visa requirement for Romanian travelers. In between these two occurrences, French officials asked that the mandatory visa requirement for Romanians be enforced again. The international media is full of the foul deeds committed by Romanians gone abroad. Recently, Austria has offered to build a prison in Romania to detain Romanian criminals caught in Austria. The American ambassador to Romania ignites on of the biggest scandals Romania has seen: the inflated cost of AIDS medicines. In the same context, Madelaine Albright, formerly a U.S. secretary of State, now a representative of one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, publicly said Romania should be regarded as a model for its exemplary way of caring for AIDS patients.

Anyone who reads Romanian newspapers or watches Romanian news programs probably has the impression that there is no word of criticism or even curse left that has not been addressed to Romanian rulers, in bulk as well as to individuals in particular. Nevertheless, both American officials - through Ambassador Guest - and European officials - through their M.P.s - say they are concerned with the Romanian Governments' domination over the media, as well as with the obstacles in the way of freedom of expression in Romania.

For the past four years, official E.U. documents have been stating that Romania meets the political criteria for accession but, all of a sudden, a few months before the scheduled conclusion of the negotiations, European parliamentarians, including the rapporteur for Romania, are asking that negotiations with Romania be halted because Romania does not meet the... political criteria. In the autumn of 2000 - an electoral year - the Baroness of Winterbourne, whose job is to monitor Romania and share her conclusions with European M.P.s, presented the matters of institutionalized children and international adoptions as the main problems of Romania's social policies. Then she kept quiet for three years until now, the year 2004, which is also an electoral year. In the meantime, however, it became known that the matter of Romanian children involves substantial political and personal interests - contradictory interests, of course - and that Romanian authorities are caught between such conflicting interests. Practically, it does not matter whether Romanian authorities are doing something about it or not because there will always be someone ready to make a fuss about Romanian children.

To make the problem even more complicated, all this takes place under a government that is particularly receptive and sensitive to foreign messages. Since the strategic objective of this administration is to join North Atlantic and European structures, the Nastase Government has been the most attentive government to European and American suggestions that Romania has had since the Revolution. This government has consciously done its homework in all the "serious' chapters such as macro-economy privatization - where it was surprised to see that those who were criticizing Romania for not wanting to sell State property were the first who declined buying it - legal reform, including constitutional reform, participation in remote conflicts and wars etc. etc. A bigger surprise this government experienced was to see that the hand petting it on the shoulder became a fist that broke its nose.

Under these circumstances, it is easy to understand the irritation with which Romanian politicians received some of these foul blows from the West. For instance, the media says that President Iliescu had reproached the Baroness of Winterbourne for criticizing Romania so harshly because of electoral interests of her own. Moreover, some politicians and analysts thought they have stumbled upon a "conspiracy" against Romania.

Obviously, this is not the case. What Romanian authorities need to understand - and, along with them, the entire political community in Romania - is that the apparent confusion and the train of "nonsense" accompanying it is in fact an aspect of the political game we are going to be a part of from now on. Their only consolation is that, in the Western World, the rules are the same for every player. Evidence in this respect is the recent conflict between Tony Blair and the BBC, or the criticism voiced against George W. Bush over the Iraqi War, or the problems Gerhard Schroeder is having.

This political game, which Romanians are unfamiliar with, is a mixture of conflicting interests, public debates on "sensitive" issues - children, the environment, human rights etc. - media campaigns and a diversity of political pressures and economic pressures. Westerners call it "democracy" and it is the core of the Western political system, which we want to join. All the "big" problems we are having stem only from our chronic disability to adapt to these new rules of politics. The kind of politics where no "boss" is absolute and no accomplishment is unanimously appreciated. The more complicated this world is, the more diverse it is. It turns out that integrating Romanian politics into European politics is the most difficult aspect of our journey to the E.U. Unfortunately, this is not negotiable. More unfortunately, this aspect is more important than all of the others put together.