The Humanized Story Of "The Nicholson Report"

The European Parliament's Report - currently in a draft phase - is only an advisory document. In the face of dramatic recommendations coming only two months after the adoption of a resolution on Romania's accession, The E.U. Commission has taken a very practical stand. According to its spokesperson, The E.U. Commission believes that Romania needs to further pursue reform and expedite it - in keeping with the recommendations made in the Report - in order to keep up with the already established accession calendar (to conclude negotiations in 2004 and to join The E.U. in 2007) which The Commission is determined to observe on its part

In other words, the Report neither delays nor makes Romania's accession process significantly harder. It is an important element, indeed, and it cannot be ignored, but it is not decisive though. The European Union does not take unexpected turns in the accession process, which, by the way, is perfectly normal. Nevertheless, the people of The European Union - after all, The E.U. is made up of people - may do that.

"The Nicholson Report" is the expression of some European M.P.s' irritation with the Romanian authorities. What upset them the most was the fact that they were not considered important enough. This irritation resulted in a special paragraph (19b) in which the Romanian authorities are advised that The European Parliament is important, too, and that not just The Commission, but also The Parliament can approve or deny a country's E.U. accession.

And, to prove that they can "punish" The Romanian Government" if they got upset, the European M.P.s amended the initial version of the Report - a fairly mild version - by adding a number of references to Romania not having met the political criterion for accession, to the country's economic difficulties and so on and so forth.

This is not the first time that a European politician has become upset with The Romanian Government. French President Jacques Chirac, too, had a nervous outburst against Romania when our government decided to endorse the American stand on Iraq. He calmed down after a while, as political realism gradually replaced resentment. This time, however, we do not know what irritated European M.P.s.

We could guess it is based on their fuss over two measures taken by The Romanian Government. The first was to award the contract for the Bucharest - Bors Highway to an American company. The second is about international adoptions.

It is quite clear that the decisions made by The Romanian Government on these two matters have affected both the personal and business interests of certain European parties. In the highway case, a contract worth over 2.5 billion dollars went across the Ocean instead of creating jobs and profits for Europeans. In the international adoptions case, some of the European citizens who wanted to adopt Romanian children were able to do so. Others were not - with or without the moratorium - because it appears that they did not have the right connections. These people are therefore very upset. More importantly, they are upset in a European Union electoral year.

I have no additional information about these matters, but common sense tells me that 2.5 billion dollars gone to an American company plus a number of angry voters in an electoral year are enough reasons even for the European M.P.s to be upset-at least those M.P.s who feel personally affected by these decisions.

Nevertheless, neither the highway nor the children are accession criteria. Or, at least, not directly. However, the angry M.E.P.s, whose job description does not include - at least in theory - either of the two matters, have proven to The Romanian Government that they can link both these matters to accession criteria if they want to.

They said that The Government's decision to award the highway contract without a tender was a violation of market economy rules. Which is as true as Jacques Chirac's reproach that Romania's foreign policies were "un-European."

Then they said that the international adoption cases to which The Romanian Government had given the green light were a violation of children's rights. As far as this reproach goes, the European parliamentarians overlooked one small detail. According to data from The U.S. Department of State, over the past few years, Romania - the country which Baroness Nicholson disdains for "exporting children" - has cut the number of international adoption cases by half, whereas Bulgaria - the country which The European Parliament commends for not having any serious problems - has doubled "child exports" and has therefore made lots of European voters happy, while Romania has made them unhappy.

In brief, a typically Balkan affair has reached Brussels. This tells us that, after all, we are not that different from The E.U. and so we deserve to be accepted. Moreover, the European parliamentarians, who are people too, are not essentially different from the Romanian politicians who rushed to use "The Nicholson Report" in the recently started electoral campaign.