Defiant Romania demands more time to reform

Romania’s foreign affairs minister has energetically rejected a suggestion that his country is badly thought-of by its EU partners.

Even after the European Commission’s criticisms of Romania’s poor record in meeting its accession obligations in a report last month, Adrian Cioroianu told European Voice last week: "I’m completely proud of representing my country and I think I have every right to be."

Cioroianu said that the necessary laws were in place for fighting corruption and improving the justice system. "What is missing is their application," he added.

Cioroianu said it was a mistake to focus unduly on high-level corruption: "It’s not just at the high levels of government, parliamentarians or ministers, but it’s a temptation at the most fundamental levels of society." Winning the fight against corruption would require time, he said.

He admitted that on a personal level he was disappointed that too few prosecutions reach a conclusion: "It irritates me, as a citizen, that the results are not there. As a citizen I expect more from our judicial system. You don’t have to be a minister to expect that," said Cioroianu. "I’d like to see some of these cases completed."

But he maintained that it was not the duty of politicians to interfere. "If you demand independence and objectivity from lawyers and judges, you can’t expect politicians to pronounce on the justice system - it’s not their business", he insisted. "As a politician all I can say is we must wait, it’s up to [the] judges."

The recently-appointed Cioroianu, himself only 40 years old, expressed confidence that change was imminent: "I hope the judges of my generation have the determination to move things ahead - and they have demonstrated that they can."

The foreign minister’s belief in the rising generation in his country extends beyond the justice system. He disclosed that it was his own youthful officials who had prepared his country’s position on the new EU treaty in the run-up to the June EU summit, in the face of continuing tensions in Romania between its president and prime minister, and widely differing views on foreign affairs.

"Of course I consulted the prime minister and president, but on technical dossiers of this sort it is the people who work in the foreign affairs ministry who develop the policy," he said, underlining that their average age is around 40. "They are young, perhaps less experienced, but full of innovative and imaginative ideas," he said.

Meanwhile, Cioroianu is managing to survive what he himself termed the "risky" situation of working with a president and prime minister "who don’t have very good relations" - a diplomatic allusion to the prime minister’s recent attempts to dislodge the president. Discord has eased since the president’s position was reinforced by a massive popular vote in May, he said, and early elections are now off the agenda, partly because Bucharest has won the prize of hosting a NATO summit next April.

But he candidly revealed persistent areas of uncertainty over his country’s foreign policy. Despite telling Condoleezza Rice, the US state secretary, on his first trip to Washington last month that Romania would boost its military presence in Afghanistan, "I honestly don’t know where the idea came from", he said, adding that "I hope the president agrees." He also admitted that it was "hard to say how long we will leave our troops in Iraq". And he airily dismissed recent EU accusations that Romania is handing out citizenship too easily to citizens from neighbouring Moldova, which has strong linguistic and cultural ties to Romania. "It’s a cliché. We’ve given only 100,000 citizenships. It’s not going to drown the EU," he said.

• Peter O’Donnell is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.

Romania’s foreign affairs minister has energetically rejected a suggestion that his country is badly thought-of by its EU partners.