The sinner and the selfish club

Let’s not try to play down the Schengen failure. On the contrary, we’d be better off admitting that ever since the final years of Ceauşescu’s reign and the "Mineriads" of the days of Ion Iliescu [when the government trucked thousands of miners into Bucharest to quell demonstrations in 1990], Romania has never suffered from such a lack of credibility in Europe as it does now.

How did it come to this? Simple. I used to think that once they let us into the club, our commitments would become optional: after all, they couldn’t throw us back out. After 1 January 2007, Romania’s political leaders – President Băsescu and his allies, Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, but also the leaders of the opposition – neglected the European project in order to concentrate their energies on settling domestic scores. President Băsescu’s adversaries plotted to get him impeached and hurled themselves headlong into electoral campaigns that were devoid of substance – and inordinately costly. The president, in particular, made some spectacular statements, albeit for internal use, that irked our European partners. Romania has let itself drift with the current and ended up crashing into a crisis like the Titanic hitting the iceberg.

Who still takes the trouble to note the changes occurring in Europe? Under the pressure of the economic crisis and spreading anti-immigrant sentiment, the powerful EU states have become selfish and cynical. Inspired by the rhetoric of a rapidly rising wave of right-wing extremism, more and more Western voters put the blame on EU enlargement, integration and the single currency. The traditional centre-right parties that are in power in most of the EU powerhouse states are making more and more concessions to those extremists. They’re afraid they might suffer the same fate as the Social Democrats, who lost plenty of voters to radical left-wing rivals against the backdrop of crisis and austerity measures.

Punishing “those responsible” for Europe’s problems

But have you noticed that the states that take the hardest line on Romania are run by parties that belong to the same family as the men in power in Bucharest? Their leaders seek to show voters that they are punishing “those responsible” for Europe’s problems. Romania, the sinner, is the perfect scapegoat.

It is extremely dangerous to invoke subjective political criteria where technical considerations should take priority, as in the case of accession to the Schengen Area. If that verdict were to extend to EU funds tomorrow, we’d be lost! And the Union itself is in danger. A Europe whose rules are arbitrarily supplanted by the dictates of the most powerful interests is a Europe of division and confrontation, not one of peace and prosperity. History has already showed that.

Statesmen endowed with vision would have sensed these dangerous developments brewing and done everything possible to minimise the impact thereof on Romania. But we now see what they did and didn’t do. And we should build on that reality when we resolve to bestir ourselves, shake the dust off and begin reconstructing our destiny in Europe.

Translated by Eric Rosencrantz

Counterpoint

The nationalist sirens’ song

Romania’s admission into the Schengen Area has been put on the back burner, sparking a sudden burst of national pride in the political establishment and certain newspapers. "We are Romanians,” declares one editorialist in JurnalulNaţional, taking up the refrain from a nationalist folksong. "Which is a good thing,” he adds. "That’s my opinion. And that of some others, too, those who haven’t fallen in with the Schengen siren’s song." "It’s not the fact that our entry into the Schengen Area has been put off, but that we don’t belong to that area,” he explains. "What do I really want? To feel like I’m in the courtyard of my building when I’m in France? In my bedroom when in Italy? In my living room when in Germany?” "That won’t work, my brothers, that won’t work,” writes the journalist. “Because we’re Romanians. In Schengen or not, we’re the same people. And that’s a good thing. I’m comfortable with my nationality. That also means I can say exactly what I think of us, of the Bulgarians and – why not – of the Austrians, too.” He concludes with another line from the folksong, “We’re the masters here”, only to add: “We’ve elected crap representatives."