NATO - Past, Present And Future

Diplomarbeit von Edmond Nawrotzky-Török

Abstract:

When talking about integration, one must think first of all about the problems such an integration means. Many Romanians nowadays look at the integration into the European and Euro-Atlantic structures only as a means of better living standards. But very few Romanians might be willing to pay the price for the integration.

Nobody in Romania seems to know exactly the direction we are heading to. But there must certainly be changes of the people’s mentality, if we want to achieve something at all. Yet, this problem does not concern Romanians alone. The West generally regards Romania as a source of crime and, at least for the moment, does not even want to talk to Romania about our integration into the European Union, although the negotiations have been started with all potential candidates at the same time. Recently, when about 500 gypsies created problems in Austria, the country asked Hungary and the Czech Republic to introduce the visa-system for Romanian citizens. They obviously wanted the Romanians to be even more humiliated than they already were, lining up also at Hungary’s and the Czech Republic’s embassies in order to be able to travel to those countries. Mister Andrei Pleşu, the Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister, said: „If 500 gypsies are able to destabilise Austria, they are either first-hand merchandise or Austria is a little bit frail”. On the other hand, one cannot deny that Romanian citizens keep causing trouble to western European countries. But the problem is that dubious people manage somehow to get visas, while honest people are denied the basic right of travelling to foreign countries only because a few of their fellow citizens are being considered troublemakers. If no visas were required, only a small, negligible margin of the Romanian citizens travelling abroad would be denied the permission to travel to western European countries again.

Then, there is the problem of culture. If you ask a Romanian citizen about the capital of a western European state, it is less possible that he will not know it than if you asked a western European about Romania’s capital. For instance, many Frenchmen are convinced that Budapest is Romania’s capital. A French band performing in Bucharest was warmly welcome and acclaimed until its members shouted: „I love you, Budapest!”. Of course, the fact that western Europeans do not know eastern European capitals does not mean that people in western Europe are not civilised. Romania still has a long way to go until people stop throwing papers on the street, until the administration becomes friendly – as such a word so far does not exist in the administration’s vocabulary – and until bureaucracy is literally abolished. All these things cause serious problems to the country’s image. And then, we should not forget about our dear politicians.

When talking about politics, many people think that Romania must be ruled by some serious people who are not compromise-friendly and always follow the right path. That, unfortunately, is not the case, if we refer to Romania’s nowadays politicians. A politician is ususally a sly fox, but Romanian politicians are maybe the most cunning foxes. No wonder, since many deputies and senators are former collaborators with Romania’s once feared Secret Police, the Securitate. It is not in their interest to make things work, because of mainly two reasons: first of all, they have not changed and will never change their mentalities, lest they should benefit from it; secondly, they would never betray themselves by permitting people the access to the secret files, because that would probably mean their end. They are holding the reins of power so well, that it is very hard to conceive justice as long as they rule. However, Romania is better off with nowadays coalition than with Mr. Iliescu’s communists. But the problems – including the „problem of disastrous inheritage” – remain.

An alternative to the actual leadership would be a government formed of young people, 25 years at most, in the year 2000. Young people – unless children of former communist activists – are not interested in not making a thorough reform. But it is little likely that very many people would elect them.

Given all the economic, political and social problems, integration into the European Union seems very bleak. Nobody wants to import a problem and Romania is one, at least for now. People have to change a lot in order to be able to be „compatible”.

Let’s imagine that Romania has joined the EU and has been granted full membership. In this case, social problems would occur almost instantly. When Romania was a NATO candidate, nearly everybody was very fond of the cause and many Romanians were disappointed when we did not join NATO. To them, joining NATO meant joining a better life. But this „better life” cannot come instantly. Romanians never really liked to work, because Ceauşescu, Romania’s former dictator, had „taken care” of every Romanian. Nobody really worked, but everybody had his wage at the end of the month. Now that many people are being confronted with unemployment, everybody wants to work, but unfortunately, that is not possible. Once Romania would be in the EU – and even before – many people had to become unemployed, in order to make the Romanian economy become viable. If not, our economy would collapse. So far, so bad. But if there were no borders between states, 500 gypsies would not destabilise Austria, but a few thousands certainly would. But the „gypsy problem” is also being largely exaggerated. This people has been oppressed for centuries and it still has not found a place where to live in peace. Everybody looks at them as to something evil. As a result, it is natural for them to revolt against their „oppressors”. But a still bigger problem is that Romanians are considered to be gypsies. Hence the problems of the Romanians when they want to travel to western Europe and their even bigger hatred against gypsies.

But these are only „minor problems”, in comparison to the fact that Romania’s corruption is literally flourishing. Try to go to a bureaucrat without an „attention” and you will be completely disregarded as a citizen; try to leave your car at a service without insurance and see how much of your car you will find the next day; try to go to a doctor without putting a white envelope into his dirty hands or dirty pocket and risk to die. Imagine now that Europe is overfled with such a „luck” Gypsies would be rather welcome than such corrupt people. And still, they are the ones holding the power. In order to be able to join the European Union, at least a few hundred thousands of „rare birds” should be jailbirds, and I am still being optimistic.

Returning to what I was previously saying, the Romanian economy would literally collapse if people went to work to other countries. But other countries’ economies would also encounter serious hardships, because many Romanians would legally provide cheaper labour. That would be a serious bane for western politicians, who would under no circumstances accept such a thing.

If reforms were to be achieved, it would mean that many factories be shut down and many people become unemployed, which in turn would mean that nowadays politicians had to say good-bye to their well-paid jobs by the year 2000. That is why maybe reforms are so slow in Romania. The former governments did the same thing: they did raise prices, encouraging inflation instead of reducing the labour force, in order to be re-elected. But in seven years they have unfortunately also succeeded in ruining the country’s economy. That has turned many Romanians to lose the hope of a better tomorrow. And how should it not have done this, since even the president of Romania seems to be involved into a mob-like activity which has scandalised the entire Romanian society.

The event occured in April 198. A Bulgarian airline brought a lot of cigarette – boxes into Romania, landing upon the Otopeni International (probably ironically called so) Airport. Many VIP’s were involved and very many ministers had to show up on TV in order to give insurances that in fact it had been a coordination between the Secret Service and the police and that they had achieved a great thing, by catching the criminals. The igniting power of this so-called „flagrant” had been the president himself.

Since the strings are being pulled at such a high level, Romania could be compared to countries which have even less sympathy from western European countries, such as Yugoslavia. It is clear that western European countries have no sympathy for Romania as long as injustice rules. But maybe we should ask ourselves what each of us can do on a lower level in order to make things better. What if we simply refused to take bribes, refused to accept dubious work offers, refused to harm our fellow co-mondozens in any way? That would certainly mean a great leap forward (hopefully not a Chinese one), but the greatest problem of the Romanian people is mentality. Besides, Romanians have been used to a certain style of life for too long a time (although it has been their fault, because they could have actively fought against communism as other eastern European countries did) and they might find it difficult to integrate into a completely new society.

In order to make Romanian economy competitive, people should be paid better. But that would mean lots of foreign investments. Many people think that „we should not sell our country” to foreigners. That has been at least the policy of the former government and unfortunately it largely succeeded in implementing the fear into many people who blindly believe in what some people say. Politicians know to exploit the fears of the people. In the European Union, this is also the case sometimes, but investments are almost always welcome, as everybody knows they provide working places. But in Romania, people tend to be scared by almost everything. One of the most common fears is the increase of prices. Yet, many people do not know that they could live better if they wanted to. For instance, peasants used to be coerced into joining „Agricultural Production Cooperatives”, while now they find themselves in so-called „peasant associations”. Yet, I fail to see the difference between the two things, the only exception being maybe the fact that peasants are paying more than before for the seeds and services provided by the „associations”. A solution would be that the peasants all put money together to buy themselves tractors and other machinery in order to cut costs. Thus, they had to pay only for the seeds and the fuel. But nobody seems to opt for such a solution.

Maybe the most serious trouble of all is the fact that Romania is also embracing nationalistic views which have larger and larger tendencies towards chauvinism. Parties like The Romanian National Unity Party, The Great Romania Party or The Socialist Labour Party are very extremist parties which are constantly attacking minorities, especially the Hungarian one, which is seen as a threat to Romanian unity. It is interesting and at the same time worrisome that people embrace such views. This problem, however, is not entirely a Romanian one. In recent elections in Sachsen-Anhalt, the DVU, an extremist German party, has won for the first time seats in the Bundestag’s Landtag. In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front is recording spectaculous popularity and in Austria Haider’s extremist party is very likely to enter Parliament next year. Other countries like the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark also have such nationalistic parties, but it is true that they are of little importance. As long as such parties do not have the majority, it is still all right, but if such people are constantly being elected and if they are not stopped in due time, this could become a major problem which could ignite serious local conflicts, like the ones we are looking at in Kosovo.

On the whole, Romania still has a long way to go until it will be completely integrated into the European Union. The most optimistic views are very bleak. Romanians have to change, mentalities have to change and the government must change. With nowadays politicians it will be impossible for Romania to join the European Union.

However, if the year 2000 brings major changes in Romania and if neighbour countries keep integrating, we should hope that some day we will be able to live for a better tomorrow.

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