Wooden language accompanied Romania along the seven or so complicated years up to its accession to the European Union. And it hasn’t abandoned it five years after joining the EU, either. Amid popular enthusiasm for the accession, the authorities no longer felt the need to explain to the citizens what integration means, to spell out its benefits, as well as its risks and constraints. Of course Romanian citizens discovered some of these benefits on their own. Three million of them went to work abroad. The free movement of persons is now a given, but people who lived in communist times wouldn’t even have dreamed of it. But is this a success for Romania, is it a success that the country lost three million citizens in a few years’ time?
What has Leonard Orban understood?
The Ministry of European Affairs on Thursday organized a seminar dedicated to the five years since Romania’s accession to the European Union – perhaps the most important thing that happened to the country in almost 100 years. But if we sum everything up, what do we have?
Talks about the EU have been largely focused on EU funds. The mirage of the over EUR30 billion enchanted everyone. But how much money has Romania taken and how much has it paid as a mandatory contribution to the EU budget?
The minister of European affairs Leonard Orban, the first European commissioner coming from Romania, dismissed in a barely-veiled manner statements that Romania is a net contributor: those who say that Romania is a net contributor are wrong. Here are the data presented by the minister:
Even amid a slow absorption of EU funds, Romania is a net beneficiary, receiving EUR11.91 billion since accession and paying EUR6.24 billion, which means it received EUR5.67 billion more than it gave. The minister includes here all funds absorbed so far by Romania – structural and cohesion funds, direct payments to farmers and funds for rural development, i.e. an average absorption rate of 18-19% of the overall amounts available to Romania – around EUR35 billion.
“If we add up all the funds that have actually been absorbed – not just the prefinancing – the percentage is around 18.5-19%, out of the overall EUR35.4 billion. This is the percentage at present.”
But the minister admits that the major risks will come at the end of 2013, “when the actual amounts absorbed will have to exceed EUR8 billion.” It is clear that now minister Orban is referring to structural funds. And the absorption of structural funds at present (6.6%) only amounts to 1.2 billion. If in five years Romania absorbed EUR1 billion in structural funds, will it absorb EUR7 billion in two years?
What Emil Boc understood
Prime minister Emil Boc had a balanced position talking about the five years since accession. He counts among the advantages the free movement of persons as a result of the EU accession, the consolidation of the rule of law, citizen freedoms guaranteed by law.
But, he says, the minuses are significant: the fact that direct foreign investment that came as a result of the accession have not been fully used, the fact that Romanians are still subject to labor market restrictions in ten EU countries, a low rate of absorption of EU funds, the failure to eliminate the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification imposed by the European Commission and a major competitiveness deficit that Romania has to other EU member countries. Its productivity is 57% lower than the EU average.
According to the prime minister, in order to bridge this gap, the measures planned by the Government are to increase from 63% to 70% the occupancy rate of people between 20 and 64, increasing by 2% of GDP the share of investments in research and development, and reducing the poverty rate by 580,000 people.
What Traian Basescu understood
President Traian Basescu, who has been at the helm of Romania for seven years, led Romania a couple of years before the integration, and for the entire period since.
Present at the seminar, the head of state said “the lack of consistency of Romanian politicians discredited Romania in the EU by actions such as setting up and then dissolving the National Integrity Agency, and by setting up and then seeking to dissolve the National Anticorruption Directorate.”
Romania, he says, has been made to pay dearly for this lack of consistency – it is still being monitored by the European Commission on justice.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)