Comments on: Is Romania really ready for the EU?

By: David

David — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 06:17:15 +0000

This is sort of a half response to carolina’s Polish example.
First, almost surely, the current (weird)leaders of Poland would have won the power be it in the EU or not.
Second, partly digressing from a real answer, I want to point out C.Ghinea’s opinions from last week’s Dilema Veche, which can be found here: http://www.dilemaveche.ro/index.php?nr=142&cmd=articol&id=4061
Long story short: integration did good for Poland.
Cheers!

By: Cristian

Cristian — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:59:59 +0000

Geez, it’s seems the Romania as woman metaphor is getting a lot of traction these days. This is indeed fun, although I am a little disturbed by the hordes of stereotypes here denoting a male dominated culture. After all, women (and Romania) should aim to please.

By: carolina

carolina — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 15:53:57 +0000

You might be amused by this…got it from jurnalul.ro.

Where is Romania? Is it famous, is it anonymous? Ok, let’s say that if it was a TV star, Romania would be a lady in her 40s, a gymnast in her youth; at the age of 30 she would have become the lover of a sadistic man, which she had killed in the past. She would have a grandpa that uses to drink blood and another one who uses to drinks. She is still quite pretty, but she uses a lot of make-up. She graduated from high-school, but she introduces herself as a person with PhDs in several important areas. She would work hardly, but only on a schedule that would keep her at work at 6:00 p.m. the most. She speaks English with a slight influence that the foreigners don’t know if it is sexy or Slavonian. The most important thing is that she is available. She will soon have enough money for the boob-job, if the GDP increases in the same manner.

By: carolina

carolina — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 17:21:17 +0000

After repeat visits to the country, it seems insane to me that Romania is even being considered for entry to the EU, let alone a shoo-in for entry. What is the EU thinking? Allowing Poland in has been a disaster — entry was supposed to “civilize” the country, but now Poland has drifted into a hazy world of embarrassing homophobia, antisemitism, disarray and sweetheart deals for the government’s friends. Don’t people ever learn?

We’ll see how this Romania scenario plays out. Loved the marriage metaphor, Mr Owlspotter…

By: Dana

Dana — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 12:25:17 +0000

This words’ game between the EU and candidate countries never ceased to amaze me. What do we understand by “ready”? They say, fulfilling some criteria and accession demands. We blame all changes on them, cause “Brussels says so”, and say we’re ready, of course we’re ready, we’ve been ready for the last 2000 years. The wise say it’s also a question of mentality which will hardly change once Romania joins. No, Romania is not ready now, and it won’t be in one year or two or three. Readiness is not just a euphoric state of mind fed by years of putting the accession on top of the political agenda.

But this whole accession is not about being “ready”, no matter how loud the EU shouts that out or how much the Romanians (government) claim to be. Poland wasn’t ready. Hungary wasn’t ready. You are sometimes thinking if Italy or France were ever “ready”, and yet they are founding members of this whole thing.

Next week, the Commission will say that we’re “ready, but” and the Council in December will say that we join January 1st under close supervision. If they ever wanted to stop this, they had enough chances by now.

Romania is not ready. The question is now, will it cope with membership? Cause there’s no way out, like in a marriage (for the desperation of Brits alike), at least not until the constitution is passed.

Ready for the weekend, that may well be a clear yes!