Romania: A Balkan imbroglio, says FT

Newsroom 13/08/2012 | 07:22

Romania’s political crisis has reignited debate about EU expansion and has revealed the ‘continuing grip of the former communist elite’, according to a Financial Time analysis written Neil Buckley.

The article highlights several events in Romanian recent history and the present political turmoil, arguing that the country still wrestles with  “communist-era demons”. “‘It shows adopting thousands of pages of EU law cannot transform political cultures overnight and that hard-won democratic progress can slide back,” reads the article.

After 1989, the struggle to control former state property, “through often skewed privatisations, and for lucrative government contracts and EU money” has been part of the process of building market democracy, says the author. “The old nomenklatura, or communist and security elite, were among the biggest winners; they had contacts and funds.”

Recent political events in Bucharest have “reignited debate, too, over the politicized decision to admit Romania and Bulgaria to the EU in 2007, although their reforms lagged behind eight other ex-communist countries that joined in 2004,” reads the analysis.

Regardless of whether the referendum will be validated or not, the country faces an uncertain future, believes Neil Buckley. “Romania could face two years of turbulent cohabitation, assuming the current government wins parliamentary elections in November, with the next presidential poll only in 2014. Or a new president from the governing coalition – which campaigners fear could defang the anti-corruption agency, though the government denies such plans”.

Not only that but the crisis “may simply fuel disillusionment with a political elite seen as more interested in fighting than problem-solving”.

Simona Bazavan

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