Romania and the EU: Don’t count your chickens

Date: 17/04/04

2007 may be too early an entry date for a big, poor country

THERE is a public clock in the centre of Romania's capital that counts the days until 2007 - the year when the country hopes to join the European Union. Its wishful ticking may help Romanians contain their frustration at not being among the eight other ex-communist countries that enter the club next month.

What if disappointment still follows? There is no “plan B” to cope with failure, say officials, almost proudly. That strategy may sound risky, but it has advantages. Romania's government has enough on its plate striving for success in 2007 (a date also held out to Bulgaria), without having to plot alternative strategies too.

The EU's requirements, swallowed whole, offer the government a ready-made programme. The need to fulfil it will provide a persuasive argument for keeping the ruling Social Democratic Party in power at the general election which is due in November.

Romania's pantomime of optimism deters EU officials and visiting politicians from questioning its ambitions, at least publicly. The only blunter message has come from the European Parliament, which said last month that Romania's accession in 2007 would be impossible unless it tackled such issues as corruption, a lack of judicial independence, harassment of the media and police brutality.

The parliament said Romania's social security system “fail[ed] completely” to help larger families, and called food safety “alarming”. But that row subsided, amid Romanian promises to improve. The European Commission still says negotiations can be concluded in time for a treaty by the end of 2005, and for accession in 2007. Romania wants the negotiations concluded by the end of this year, but that looks unlikely. Even the completion of negotiations would not mean that Romania was “ready” to join the EU in any strict sense. Nobody thinks this poor, sprawling country, whose income per person is 10% of the EU average, will have an efficient government, decent judges, a sophisticated market economy and mastery of EU law by 2005, nor even by 2007.

The idea is more that the negotiations might be deemed complete, if the EU is in an indulgent mood, once Romania has got laws and programmes in place to attack the worst of its failings, and has earmarked enough money for the years ahead to ensure that in practice things do move securely in the right direction.

Modernising Romania's legal system will mean recruiting and training about 1,500 judges, and the principles of judicial independence must be drummed into both judges and politicians - the work of five or ten years at best, not of one or two. The government needs to make its own workings more open and accountable, a tall order for politicians who mostly learnt their trade during the tyranny of Nicolae Ceausescu. It will mean, especially, more transparency in public spending, which is still used to buy loyalties and line pockets.

In December, Romania did not even bother with a tender when it gave a $2.5 billion contract to an American company, Bechtel, for a hardly-needed motorway across Transylvania. This extravagant gesture smacked less of transport planning than of a bid to bolster support among local ethnic Hungarians and to buy American friends.

But the EU has been flexible towards countries included in this year's expansion. At least two have severe shortcomings in their judicial systems; another one or two, notably Poland, may elect dangerous populists. Why shouldn't Romania have similar indulgence?

One answer may be that, after struggling to digest so many ill-equipped countries this year, the EU will be in no hurry to repeat the experience. Early clashes with Poland have brought home the risks of letting a big but very needy country into the EU: it becomes aggressive and defensive, fearing that others will take advantage of its weakness. Romania might follow suit. If the admission of Romania in 2007 comes to look too daunting, the EU can slow the negotiations, raising questions and doubts until the moment for signing the accession treaty passes. (It would have to decide then whether to set back the admission of Bulgaria also.) Romania and the EU should think more more about this possible outcome. Delaying the next enlargement until, say, 2009, would give Romania more time to complete badly needed reforms. Fears that this might backfire, by demoralising Romania so much that its reforms unravelled, are probably misplaced - especially if a later date were offered as a firm promise.

For the Romanian government, a delay might even be welcome, so long as it became known only after November's election. The ruling Social Democrats will campaign as the party capable of assuring EU entry. If the date then slips to 2009, they can campaign on the same platform when the next election comes round in 2008. But a botched accession in 2007 would make the 2008 election very sticky. If the centre-right opposition wins this year's election, it should be happier still. It will get no blame for the deferral and will win time for reforms. The clock can be reset, without wrecking the mechanism.

2007 may be too early an entry date for a big, poor country like Romania.