Romania's Rocky Path to Respectability

"La Europa" is proving a massive hit in Romania.

A sitcom set in a country pub called "The Winding Road to Europe," the show stars a host of characters who spend their days drinking and swapping stories about the weird and wonderful workings of the EU.

It's one way for the population to brush up on life in the EU while Bucharest is busy implementing all the necessary entry criteria. It's an issue that will also be on top of the agenda during Schröder's visit: Will Romania be ready on schedule?

According to the European Council's roadmap for Bulgaria and Romania, accession negotiations will be concluded in 2004. Provided that the two countries stick to their commitments, the accession treaty will be signed in 2005.

If so, the EU will be welcoming the two countries as new members as early as Jan. 2007 in what will be the fifth EU enlargement. The EU has, nonetheless, introduced a so-called "safeguard clause", which gives it the possibility of delaying entry for a year, as part of a stringent new monitoring system.

It may well end up citing this clause.

A long way to go

While Bulgaria, where Schröder will head on Friday, concluded pre-accession talks in Luxembourg in June and wasted no time accepting the terms, Romania appeared to drag its feet.

To many, the time-frame is just too ambitious. Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana said he was surprised by the speed with which Bulgaria accepted the safeguard clause, telling the press it seemed to happen "over the weekend."

EU enlargement commissioner Günter Verheugen has made clear he would be making the same proposal for Romania, a country whose most pressing problem is still the struggle against widespread corruption, which, he has said, "has curtailed economic reforms and developments."

Other EU officials said it was up to Romania to make accession happen.

"The ball is in Romania's court," Roxana Morea from the EU delegation in Romania told DW-WORLD. "Basically, it's on the right path, and if it manages to successfully implement the new legislation across every sector, it will be ready."

Corruption -- the biggest hurdle

But many feel that three years doesn't give Romania enough time to clean up its act.

"Bribery is apparent on a daily basis -- simply nothing works without it," said Günter W. Dill, the director of the Bucharest office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a research and education institute connected with Germany's conservative Christian Democratic Union.

He told DW-WORLD that Romania won't be ready to join the EU "until there's been a complete transformation of the prevailing mentality."

For now, the population simply lacks trust in its public institutions, Dill said.

"Transparency is everything," he added. "We need to see recognizable measures taken to combat corruption."

Few were surprised when Romania was absent from the list of countries accepted for EU membership in 2004. After all, the poverty-stricken country has been slower to develop than other former Communist countries in eastern Europe, even though it was one of seven countries to join NATO in March 2004 -- largely thanks to what Prime Minister Nastase has called its "five star location for military bases."

Apart from corruption, excessive red tape and a judiciary that lacks independence from the government, restrictions on press freedom and the deplorable state of the country's hospitals are still major problems. Treatment of the Roma minority is also a serious issue.

A further problem is that Western values are by no means universally held in Romania, which Dill described as still very "fixated on authority." He said that much of the population still looks to the Romanian Orthodox church for guidance -- an institution which opposes EU membership.

Investor interest

The country has been more successful when it comes to economic issues, witnessing the highest growth rate so far this year of the last two decades. It's also attracting plenty of foreign business, another issue the German chancellor and his Romanian counterpart, Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, are expected to talk about.

"Efforts to attract investment have been very positive," Dill said. He was quick to emphasize Romania's potential.

"If Romania joins the EU it will be the seventh largest country in the bloc," he said. "It could also function as gateway to key markets in the east, such as the Ukraine and the Black Sea."

This hasn't escaped the attention of forward-thinking investors, many of them Italian and German.

"Romania's location could prove highly strategic," Dill said. "Many investors accept the current problems because they're thinking ahead."

Romanian economic expert Ilie Serbanescu agreed.

"Now that Romania is set to be integrated into Europe, the rules of the game have changed," he told DW-RADIO. "German investors are more and more likely to come to Romania because of its obvious profit potential."