Romania and the European Union. Brussels beckons

Despite its misgivings, the European Union is preparing to admit Romania

CORE Europe, meet poor Europe. Romania and Bulgaria look ever more likely to join the European Union in 2007, after being left out of this year's enlargement because they were too slow over political and economic reforms. Bulgaria's entry is the more assured, following the good marks it won in the European Commission's progress report last month. The Bulgarians now hope that next month's EU summit will fix a date for signing their accession treaty early next year.

Romania's progress has been wobblier. Unlike Bulgaria, it has yet to finish formal talks with the EU, though it hopes to do so by the end of the year. The negotiations are mainly about identifying areas where a candidate country can readily implement the EU's rule-book, and areas where it needs more time and help. Romania is still negotiating on competition policy, the environment, and justice and home affairs, where it will have the biggest problems meeting EU standards.

Romania's life is complicated by the fact that it faces both parliamentary and presidential elections on November 28th. On the face of it, a change of government might be healthy. The ruling Social Democrats (PDSR) are post-communists whose older leaders learnt their trade in Ceausescu's time. They have modernised their style and ideas in the past four years, but their party machine is fuelled by clientelism and corruption. The main opposition group, Justice and Truth, is scarcely free of such sins, but its instincts are more liberal. It wants to cut taxes further and faster. Its plain-spoken presidential candidate, Traian Basescu, a former sea-captain recently re-elected as mayor of Bucharest, has caused a fuss by defending gay rights and calling for legalised prostitution.

A change of government would not mean big changes of policy. Most decisions would be dictated largely by the commitments that Romania has already made to the EU, to NATO, which it joined this year, and to the IMF, with which it has agreed structural reforms. Even so, the election is unhappily timed. A change of government would mean new leaders having to make themselves known and trusted in Brussels, and new ministers needing to get the measure of their jobs, just when Romania wants other countries to sign off on its EU accession. A re-elected PDSR, on the other hand, would “be in a position to keep moving Romania forward”, says Mircea Geoana, the current foreign minister who will become prime minister if the PDSR wins again.

The electorate seems torn. Recent polls show the PDSR narrowly ahead of Justice and Truth, with the nationalist Greater Romania Party far behind, but one-third of voters still to make up their minds. The PDSR's presidential candidate, Adrian Nastase, now prime minister, is leading Mr Basescu by four or five points. But official campaigning has only just begun, and Mr Basescu's rough charm may win over swing voters. “On November 28th I am going to beat Adrian Nastase like his mother never beat him when he was a naughty boy,” Mr Basescu promised last week. Mr Nastase responded by calling his rival irresponsible and xenophobic and saying that he would be “at ease in a pub”.

A president at ease in a pub would not be so bad in a country that, until 1989, had a dictator who looked more at home in a madhouse. Romania has taken a roundabout way to democracy since Ceausescu, its elections overshadowed by rampaging miners, two economic crises, and the rise of the Greater Romania Party to the brink of government in 2000. This election will be the first in which the direction of the country is not fundamentally in question. That is good news, as it means that democracy is working. The EU has also treated Romania quite generously, whatever last-minute rows now blow up. Setting out to reunite post-communist Europe, the EU tried hard not to omit Romania, even when it seemed to be going backwards.

Under the EU's tutelage, Romania's present government has come to accept that political and economic reforms are needed for the good of the country, and not merely to secure cash from Brussels. The government has even privatised Petrom, the state oil company, whose sales are equal to some 4% of GDP. Petrom had previously been a vast off-budget reserve of cash, cheap credit and patronage.

There is still a long way to go. Romania has the lowest income per person in central Europe, the worst environmental standards, the biggest tax arrears, the most pervasive corruption, the highest infant mortality and the lowest education spending. Its judicial system is a mess, its media freedom questionable, and its labour market so dysfunctional as to constitute “a human-asset paralysis”, in the words of a World Bank report.

The EU talks of adding a clause to Romania's accession treaty to permit a year's postponement, until 2008, should Romania have serious last-minute problems. But this is a fig-leaf of comically inadequate proportions. The EU has chivvied Romania along until it has reached roughly the standards and habits of the Italian south in the 1960s. Now it is going to let the country in largely on trust, knowing that reforms promised today will be implemented only in years, even decades, to come. If Romania were not such a likeable and spirited place, that might seem a touch rash.

Despite its misgivings, the EU is preparing to admit Romania.