An introduction to Romanian Politics

Romania joined the EU a few months ago but not too much is known of Romanian politics in the rest of Europe. Only Vadim Tudor managed to get some press coverage in Brussels by helping to set up the Independent Tradition Sovereignty (ITS) group in the European Parliament. But nobody seems to care about what has been happening in Romanian politics in the last weeks. And important events are coming up: elections for the European Parliament are scheduled for 13 May. A good overview on Romanian political forces can also be found here.

To become familiar with politics in Romania everybody should know the three basic features: (1) Romanian politics is a rather complicated and messy business and a ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’ or ‘socialist’ name tag does not mean too much to the parties. (2) Personal fights mixed with populism and corruption are at the centre of all debates. Political debates are often generated by the press and covered by various TV channels quite extensively. (3) Political parties always act somewhat detached from the public.

Undoubtedly the most important ‘personal fight’ is the one between PM Tariceanu and President Basescu. It started just after the last national election in late 2004 and has been going on ever since. (with debates on: “Basescu: a member of Securitatea?” or “Tariceanu involved in dubious Rompetrol transactions?”) The highlight was the resignation of Tariceanu after the floods in 2005 and the immediate withdrawal from it. President Basescu always wanted early elections, first to secure a broad majority for his D.A. Alliance in Parliament, later just to get rid of Tariceanu.

Recently, the fight heated up again with a (private) letter sent by Tariceanu to Basescu asking for support for one of his friends in court. In case Basescu had interfered, this would have constituted a clear case of political corruption. But since this is Romania, it is not as easy as it appears. The letter was sent nearly a year ago, but only in January it got revealed by the press. Basescu claims that he did not interfere, but his silence about the letter that could have helped him to oust his opponent is striking. Of course, this caused a major crisis in Romanian politics, with the main opposition party PSD officially launching an impeachment procedure against the President. After a recent procedural change, a referendum needs to be held in case of an impeachment. But the always outspoken Basescu enjoys a comfortable 50% approval in the latest polls. At the same time, Basescu opens another battlefield in proposing to change the existing proportional voting system into a majoritarian voting system.

EU accession definitely had its impact on Romanian ministers:

The first victim was foreign minister Ungureanu who had to resign after he failed to report to the PM about the situation of 2 Romanian workers held in custody at a US military base in Iraq, accused of taking pictures of military equipment.

The second victim was the well-known minister of justice Macovei who pushed through painful reforms in the Romanian justice system in order to secure the EU accession of the country. Obviously she became the most appreciated Romanian politician in Brussels but, at the same time and for the same reasons, disliked by many political actors across all parties. This resulted in a motion adopted by the Romanian Senate, calling for the immediate resignation of Macovei. Finally, she did not have to resign, thanks to the lack of consistency of the internal Senate procedures and the Romanian Constitution.

The big showdown was initially planned for 13 May 2007, the day of the scheduled elections for the European Parliament. The PSD thinks that this was a good date for the referendum on the impeachment of the president. President Basescu thinks that it would also be a good date to hold a referendum on his proposals to change the Constitution. Faced with these ideas, PM Tariceanu prefers to postpone the EP elections because he thinks that the other issues might influence the outcome of the EP election (also taking into account possible party losses!). Naturally, the political elite is divided on the issue.

Nevertheless the government decided on Monday due to the “inappropriate political climate” to postpone the European elections until the second half of 2007, without having a consensus in the cabinet (vetoed by the minister of justice and the interior minister).

But since this is still Romania, I do not believe that this decision is carved in stone.

Participate in the EU-Africa Summit!

…ok, not physically but virtually (thanks to web 2.0)! During my work on a policy briefing I came across this page. The first impression you get (especially as a wordpress user) is that of another blog, but after a while you realise it: This is an official (online) consultation process initiated by the EU and the AU (African Union) to prepare a joint strategy to be adopted at the second Euro-Africa Summit which will take place in Lisbon at the end of 2007. Interestingly, this official consultation is designed pretty much like a blog, with a wordpress blog design, rss feeds and the possibility to comment on every part of the joint strategy (that includes shared vision, governance issues, key development issues (such as Financial and External debt, Migration, Socio-economic development and Infrastructure), trade & regional integration, peace & security).

So what can we make out of this? Of course this is an excellent idea how to involve a wide range of people and civil society organisations in a process like this. (I wonder if the EU could not introduce this model for the ‘usual’ consultation processes.) No doubt, relations between the EU and Africa need to be strengthened and a shared strategy seems to be a useful thing. But it is also true that the topic is far to broad, a shared vision of Europe and Africa is somewhat very ambitious. The organisers also present a timeline of consultations that will eventually allow people to discuss more detailed topics, so there is something to look forward to.

Nevertheless, this promise has been made:

The European and African experts will meet in an EU-Africa expert meeting on the 19-23 of February, where they will start to discuss the content of the joint strategy. Since we want to ensure an optimal linkage between the public debate and the official negotiation, we will submit the initial comments and ideas presented on the web site to the official negotiators at the end of next week. The same will be done for future official expert meetings (see calendar and timeline of the consultation for details): we will submit each time a short summary of your comments and contributions to the experts

It also remains to be seen how the comments will be used in the EU-AU negotiations and how short these ‘summaries’ will be in the end. I hope the process is that transparent that we eventually see also these summaries. But then again, the consultation does not seem to be very popular: 2060 visitors and only 35 comments during one week (which should not be too difficult to summarise …. unless some more comments are made in the next days and months!!).

Europe@50: back to the future

The EU is preparing to celebrate its 50th birthday which also means a lot of research papers… One of the first pamphlets comes from the rather good European Policy Centre, a Brussels think tank. CHALLENGE EUROPE Europe@50: back to the future tries to answer questions such as ‘Was the European Convention’s work in vain?’ ‘Would today’s leaders still sign the Treaty of Rome?’ ‘EU referenda: selective veto or inclusive consultation?’ Should be interesting…

Tower of Babel

Every now and then a little language war breaks out in the EU institutions. Spain lobbies for Spanish to become one of the official working languages (at the moment: English, French and German) because it is one of most spoken languages worldwide. Germany (sometimes together with Austria) claims that German became more popular after the EU Enlargement. Italy, a big and proud country also wants its language to be considered….Usually not much is happening after attempts like that. And normally these lobbying activities are also quite diplomatic…..

But now the French really exaggerated it. Following a translation mistake a while ago, it seems that Maurice Druon (a member of the Academie Francaise who was also awarded with a K.B.E!) is heading an emergency task force to save French as the universal language in the EU (which is to a certain extent English). And his arguments are really convincing:

“The Italian language is the language of song, German is good for philosophy and English for poetry, French is best at precision, it has a rigour to it. It is the safest language for legal purposes.” He argued that French should be “the authoritative” language as it is both related to Latin – in which Roman law was written – as well as the language of the Napoleonic code.

Obviously, there is quite an extensive list of songs, poetry, philosophy and literature written in all languages and it is really disgrace if such an educated man like Mr. Druon makes such a simplistic statement. Indeed, French is routed in Latin but this is also true for Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian. And besides Roman law and the Napoleonic code we have (fortunately) other legal traditions as well….

What story should Europe tell? – It’s your turn!

Recently, the debate surrounding the apparently missing narrative of the EU gained momentum. Timothy Garton Ash thinks that “old-fashioned grand narratives and Euromyth will no longer do the trick” and proposes that Freedom, Peace, Law, Prosperity, Diversity and Solidarity should be at the centre of a new debate. Join the debate on his proposal here.

ENP success in Belarus?

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has been criticised of being ineffective, under-financed and rather limited in scope. But now it seems the slowish EU diplomacy delivers some promising results…ok, maybe no quite yet results but let’s call it a window of opportunity. The last European dictator, Belorussian President Alexander Lukashenka responded to the “non-paper – What the European Union could bring to Belarus” in a ‘non -official’ speech. Vladimir Socor has the quotations of Lukashenko in the Eurasia Daily Monitor:

“We are [situated] in the center of Europe and we must be on normal terms with the East and the West.” Instead of a balanced policy, “We have been flying on just one wing for quite some time. (…) The lesson from the recent and ongoing conflicts with Russia over energy supply and transit is just how much we need investors from Europe and the United States.”

Interesting, so what happened to the famous unfinished Union of Russia and Belarus?

Lukashenka reaffirmed his recent vows to “never let Belarus be swallowed up by Russia,” not to introduce the Russian ruble in Belarus (“an oblique way to deprive us of our independence”), and to take reciprocal steps following “Russia’s destruction of our customs union”

This project seems quite dead. But while killing the relationship with Russia, he made some incredible remarks towards the EU, echoing the ENP vocabulary quite well (energy security, trade preferences, migration control)

“The West will not enjoy energy security without Belarus” (…) He called on the EU to open its markets for Belarus products and to allow them to compete without addressing the issue of quality (…) And he described Belarus as a shield for Europe against uncontrolled migration from the East, implicitly asking for compensation in the form of EU trade preferences.

So maybe Lukashenka becomes the second Voronin…who knows…? (in the sense that he ‘officialy’ broke with Russia and claimed to have turned towards the EU. However, his ENP record tells another story.)

Why not a referendum? Look at the polls!

OK, I know this is not very ‘democratic’ but I am happy that someone opened up the debate on the limits of participatory democracy. Lately, the idea of holding a referendum is often presented as THE one and only democratic instrument that we have (especially by Madame Royal). Strangely enough, only relating to EU issues, never because of domestic policies. Anyway,  after the failed referenda on the EU constitutional treaty in France and the Netherlands, we could clearly see in what kind of mess you can run with holding a referendum with uninformed people that lost trust in their national politicians.  (hope this is enough provocation for some mean comments!)

So, here is some food for thought from Michel Godet via eurotopics:

If we are not careful, participatory democracy may consecrate the triumph of self-interest in the short-term (the only unfair inequalities are those that we do not benefit from!) at the expense of long-term collective interest. The courageous decisions to be taken regarding the future are rarely consensual and if forecasting needs be participatory, the strategy that it inspires is up to the elected members of Parliament. It is up to them to demonstrate will power and courage in order to avoid participatory demagogy.

Here the link to the original article in French: Démocratie ou démagogie?

Giddens in Brussels

Today, Anthony Giddens promoted his new book in Brussels. It is called “Europe in the Global Age” and it is about the “European Social Model”. Before I go into details, I need to stress the fact that I have not read the book and I also do not have the intention to do so. Not because of the fact that I don’t think Giddens is a good writer but I have the feeling (after his presentation) that it offers no new insights into the topic. Giddens offered some nice catch phrases about social justice and economic efficiency but no groundbreaking research results.

He started off calling the EU “a gigantic learning machine” that has various ‘social models’ that obviously learn from each other. The major problem of the European social model (that does not exist in this sense) is not, as commonly argued, globalisation but rather an aging society and the development of a knowledge – based – service – society. According to Giddens there are only best practices but no best models. A society is sustainable only if it manages to do structural reforms to address the challenges of the future. After two years of research he came to the conclusion that three points are essential for a country to be successful in the 21st century:

1. competitiveness has nothing to do with the promotion of low tax regimes

2. social justice and a high level of employment are also important

3. “women and children and young families first”

In the second part of the lecture he stressed the fact that the Lisbon agenda of the EU is “weak on social justice” compared with the economic efficiency/ competitiveness rhetoric. Even though many countries that have pursued policies in the Lisbon agenda style succeeded, Giddens warned that the winners from today might be tomorrows loosers because they might forget about the importance of “social justice”. But we should not think in old patterns here: “The people that are poor today are different from the people that were poor 30 years ago.” Commenting on the current state of the EU, Giddens stressed the fact that we should not be too pessimistic and that the EU is in a much better condition than people think.

All in all, nothing new. And be honest: would you buy the book?