Post by c0gnate on Feb 1, 2008 19:37:43 GMT -5
20:33 GMT +00:00
Grave worries about Romania
Posted by:
The Economist | BRUSSELS
Categories:
Romania
SPEAKING TO a senior official of the European Union this week, the subject of Romania came up. The official's face clouded, as he contemplated the current political situation in Bucharest, just over a year since the country entered the EU. People are seriously worried about what is happening there, he said.
There is reason to worry. More than any other of the new member states, Romania seems to have succumbed to the great temptation of any new EU member: to slide away from reforms, democratic governance and the fight against high-level corruption as soon as entry was secured.
If you want a new reason to be depressed, try this story about the abolition of the truth and reconciliation body that has been working to open the country's secret police archives from the days of Communist rule, after years of scandalous delays by the country's powerful intelligence apparatus.
The work of the CNSAS, as the truth commission is known, had sometimes bruising results, as files were opened and former collaborators revealed: in a country as compromised as Ceausescu's Romania, some basically good people ended up having contacts with the Securitate secret police.
But the opening of the files was, fundamentally, a good and important step. It took a lot of struggling to get as far as the CNSAS did. You did not have to look far for opponents: the Romanian parliament is still shamefully full of former Securitate officers and collaborators, using their offices to silence the ex-dissidents whose lives they once ruined.
Some in Brussels say that such stories are proof that Romania was allowed in too soon. That is a sterile debate: Romania is in now. Think on this instead: as an EU member, Romania must be, and will be held to higher standards. The rest of Europe is watching.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7221075.stm
www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/22131/a-cold-war-card-index-is-romanias-best-hope.thtml
www.economist.com/blogs/certainideasofeurope/2008/02/grave_worries_about_romania.cfm
Grave worries about Romania
Posted by:
The Economist | BRUSSELS
Categories:
Romania
SPEAKING TO a senior official of the European Union this week, the subject of Romania came up. The official's face clouded, as he contemplated the current political situation in Bucharest, just over a year since the country entered the EU. People are seriously worried about what is happening there, he said.
There is reason to worry. More than any other of the new member states, Romania seems to have succumbed to the great temptation of any new EU member: to slide away from reforms, democratic governance and the fight against high-level corruption as soon as entry was secured.
If you want a new reason to be depressed, try this story about the abolition of the truth and reconciliation body that has been working to open the country's secret police archives from the days of Communist rule, after years of scandalous delays by the country's powerful intelligence apparatus.
The work of the CNSAS, as the truth commission is known, had sometimes bruising results, as files were opened and former collaborators revealed: in a country as compromised as Ceausescu's Romania, some basically good people ended up having contacts with the Securitate secret police.
But the opening of the files was, fundamentally, a good and important step. It took a lot of struggling to get as far as the CNSAS did. You did not have to look far for opponents: the Romanian parliament is still shamefully full of former Securitate officers and collaborators, using their offices to silence the ex-dissidents whose lives they once ruined.
Some in Brussels say that such stories are proof that Romania was allowed in too soon. That is a sterile debate: Romania is in now. Think on this instead: as an EU member, Romania must be, and will be held to higher standards. The rest of Europe is watching.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7221075.stm
www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/22131/a-cold-war-card-index-is-romanias-best-hope.thtml
www.economist.com/blogs/certainideasofeurope/2008/02/grave_worries_about_romania.cfm