Romania accession bid ‘held up by budget constraints’

Date: 01/08/02

MOVES to raise standards in Romania's civil service to cope with the extra workload caused by its accession bid are being hampered by international demands for cuts in public spending, its chief enlargement negotiator claims.

Vasile Puscas said Bucharest was committed to an independent, professional bureaucracy and endorsed calls by the European Commission for civil servants' salaries to be increased to ensure that talented officials do not leave for the private sector.

But Puscas said this was difficult while the country was under budgetary constraints due to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Under the terms of that deal, Adrian Nastase's government has accepted a target of bringing inflation down to 22 by the end of this year - a decrease of 8 from 2001.

The Commission's latest annual report on the Balkan state said there had been little progress in bolstering its administrative capacity to cope with implementing EU laws in 2000-2001. But Puscas pointed to several steps which have recently been taken. These include reforms to the agriculture ministry, the establishment of national agencies for telecommunications and for fighting discrimination against ethnic minorities plus various EU-funded training programmes for officials.

Puscas also said eight new bills would result in improved protection for the country's 90,000 abandoned children.

The legislation follows the moratorium on international adoptions imposed by Bucharest last year after claims of child trafficking emerged.

The government is seeking to move children out of orphanages into homes with foster families. The number of children in public or privately run institutions rose from nearly 40,000 to almost 50,000 in 1997-2001 but the trend is down with last year's figures showing a decrease of 7,000 from 2000. The number of children in foster families rose from nearly 12,000 to 37,500 in the same five-year period.

Romania's treatment of the abandoned children problem came to international prominence following the 1989 revolution and execution of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Moves to raise standards in Romania's civil service to cope with the extra workload caused by its accession bid are being hampered by international demands for cuts in public spending, its chief enlargement negotiator claims.