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Subject: Basescu & Romania
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7169302/site/newsweek/
Moment
Of Truth
'The Captain' takes charge. Can he still get a faltering Romania
into the
EU?
By Andrei Postelnicu and Michael Meyer
Newsweek
International
March 21 issue - The new year was seconds away in
Bucharest's Universitatii
Square, where young people died fighting
communism in 1989. A short, bald
man jumped on stage. "Happy New Year,
Romania. Happy New Year, Bucharest!"
he shouted to an ecstatic crowd.
Taking a swig from a large champagne
bottle, he then sprayed the public
like the victorious driver of a Grand
Prix race. Elected president just
days before, Traian Basescu spared his
countrymen the officious speech
they'd come to expect from their leaders
every December 31. Instead, the
former sea captain had a drink with them.
Gestures like this mark
Basescu, 54, as a breed apart, a new generation
Romanian leader, ready to
take on the challenges of a new era. And he'd
better be, for his country is
in serious trouble. Scheduled to join the
European Union in 2007?with the
signing of the official accession treaty
just a few weeks away?Romania is
by no means ready. If graded today, it
would fail almost every objective
test of admission. The economy is a mess.
Standards of justice and human
rights are abysmal. Corruption is rampant.
Romania supposedly arose in 1989
to slough off communist dictatorship. In
fact, the celebrated revolution
was more a crypto-coup that paved the way
for nearly 15 years of rule by
the communist apparatchiks and secret police
who engineered it, led by the
retiring President Ion Iliescu. Romanians
today call it their "stolen
revolution," in testimony to the
stuck-in-the-sand morass they find
themselves in, so in contrast to their
post-Soviet neighbors. No wonder
Eurocrats in Brussels are openly
questioning whether Romania can meet its
deadline?or should have its EU
admission pushed back a year.
It's up
to Basescu to change all that?to give Romania its revolution back
and set
it firmly on a path toward Europe. If he exudes the aura of a
no-nonsense
man-in-a-hurry, it's because he is. In Washington last week,
Basescu hit it
off with George W. Bush. Like the U.S. president, Basescu is
nothing if not
bold. As the hugely popular mayor of Bucharest, he wasted
little time in
cleaning up the capital's potholed and littered streets?and
trying to clean
up city government. Thwarted in that, he at the last minute
entered
December's presidential race, eking out a stunning victory over the
stiff
and haughty Adrian Nastase, the incumbent prime minister. Largely
because
of their desire for change, Romanians chose his unpolished charisma
and
often shocking frankness over the well-oiled political machine of
the
opposing Social Democrats. With Basescu, Romania has its first
fully
non-communist government since World War II.
On its face,
Romania's future looks good. The economy has grown by more
than 5 percent
every year since 2001. The country is a member of NATO and
EU membership is
nigh. Beneath the surface, the country is a disaster
waiting to happen.
Corruption and burdensome bureaucracy has driven roughly
half the economy
underground, according to experts, reflecting a widespread
view that it's
better to avoid a system that can be abused or bought than
to do business
legitimately. "It is time for a new way of doing politics in
Romania,"
Basescu said after his election. His promise to voters: lower
taxes, honest
government and painful economic reforms?demanded by Europe
but which no
previous administration has been willing to undertake.
True to
character, Basescu plunged in. He appointed politically untainted
young
people to high political posts: a 36-year-old Oxford-educated
historian as
foreign minister, a 44-year-old Justice minister, a
40-year-old Finance
minister. Within hours of being sworn in, his new
government introduced a
16 percent flat tax on personal and corporate
income?among the lowest in
Europe. Modeled after successful initiatives
elsewhere in Eastern Europe,
the goal is to draw in money from the black
economy, reduce tax fraud and
spur local and foreign investment. Now the
Romanian government has to
convince the International Monetary Fund that
these reforms will not deepen
inflation, running at 9 percent, and balloon
the budget deficit, which the
IMF wants to see at around 0.5 percent of
GDP?despite having allowed the
previous government to run up a deficit
three times as large. "The IMF is
more pessimistic about the economy's
uncertainties than we are," concedes
Mugur Isarescu, Romania's central bank
chief.
Meanwhile, Romania
must prepare for entry into the EU. For starters, that
means weaning
thousands of large formerly state-owned industries from the
subsidies and
tax waivers?essentially a political life-support system?that
have
artifically sustained them for years. "The accounts of about
42,000
companies have been blocked until they pay their debts," Basescu
told
reporters last week about his plans for making Romanian companies
more
competitive. "If they don't, bankruptcy procedures will be
started."
The Romanian government must still privatize many state
industries, as well
as reduce bloated public-sector employment and
wages?throwing thousands out
of work. He also has to tackle delicate social
and political issues.
Romania's judges dispense justice almost at whim.
Insiders from the old
regime and the police long ago grabbed the choicest
state assets and
continue to subvert the laws to their advantage. Mafia
economics and values
pervade society. The recent elections were as crooked
as those that
preceded it, despite Basescu's improbable but much needed
victory.
Among the thorniest questions is Romania's recent history.
Once in office,
Basescu announced that he would make public the secret
files of the
Securitate, the fearsome secret police of dictator Nicolae
Ceausescu,
deposed in the 1989 coup-cum-revolution. Many fear that opening
the black
box of communism will shake Romanian society by exposing
uncomfortable
truths about many of its recent leaders and most prominent
members. "We
need to know," Basescu told the Council for Foreign Relations
in
Washington.
One can only wonder what will happen if (some say
when) Basescu fails to
deliver on the huge expectations he has raised in
only three months. "I've
been the sea captain of large oil tankers, and I
always reach my
destination," Basescu quipped last week. Whether he
succeeds or not will
soon be tested, beginning with the EU's upcoming
decision on an accession
timetable. But at least this much can be said:
Basescu will be doing his
utmost.
� 2005 Newsweek,
Inc.
#end
EuroAtlantic Club: http://www.europe.org.ro/euroatlantic_club/
***
Birou de traduceri autorizate. Oana Gheorghiu - tel/fax: 252.8681 / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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