While European parliamentarians praised the progress and efforts made in Bulgaria and Romania on 26 September 2006, when the 1 January 2007 accession date was announcement, Tom Gallagher paints a darker picture of the state of reform and corruption in Romania. He calls the 15 years since the end of communism “years of lost opportunity for reform".
In fact, Gallagher is convinced that an elite of “ex-communist businessmen” who allegedly pull the strings in Romania might even see the 30 billion euro coming from the EU between now and 2012 as an incentive for corruption. He adds that further reforms in the right direction have had been blocked by parliament and rivalries within the ministries.
Turning to the state of the market economy, he claims that “the EU’s biggest error was to fail to ensure that vigour in the adoption of free market reforms was matched by a determination that the political conditions were also met". He says that reforms often took place only on paper, and underlines the crucial role of European investors pushing for early accession for Romania.
One of his main reproaches of the EU is that "it did not take on a tougher line on oversight and reform". Instead, he argues: “Brussels adopted an unimaginative approach to Romania’s problems, one that barely scratched the surface. It is hard to avoid the impression that the country is joining largely on the terms of a local elite that has often outsmarted Brussels functionaries.”
Gallagher concludes with an appeal to the EU for a tougher line on further enlargement. He says: “The EU’s record in Romania demands close scrutiny. Otherwise, applying the same lazy methodology of entry to the western Balkans and Turkey could have dire consequences for stability in a region where the EU is keen to project its modernising values."
