Corruption Haunts Romanian Politics

Financial Times makes an analysis of the serious political impasse faced by Romania. In its effort to fight wide-spread high-level corruption, the public decision making process has suffered the most and has come to a deadlock. Public servants are so afraid of being subject to allegations of corruption that they’ve been abstaining from making any type of spending decisions.

Civil servants are personally liable for any spending decision they approve. That may be a sound anti-corruption measure, but it means no one takes a decision.

Blogger Kosmopolit considers that the major cause of such extreme political malfunction is Romania's outdated constitution. He argues that:

Having clear majorities is indeed desirable for the Romanian political system, but it is questionable whether the proposed electoral reform is enough to change the political landscape. What Romania really needs is a far-reaching constitutional reform that transforms the bicameral system into a unicameral one. Even the semi-presidential system as such should be revisited because clear majorities would even work better with clearly divided powers and responsibilities.

I am not sure whether the constitution is really the main factor in the political crisis in Romania. After all, the Romanian constitution is based on the French model, and can't be too wrong. However, the consequences of fighting corruption described by the Financial Times are thoughtprovoking. How does a country manage to fight high-profile corruption without interfering and/or slowing down the public decision making processes?

Financial Times Joins Debate on Moldovan Identity

In the previous posting I discussed Furman's opinion regarding the quality of democratic institutions in Moldova. One thing I agree with him is the existence and continuous exacerbation of the Moldovan identity crisis. It is like an active volcano that occasionally erupts and triggers chains of decisions, events and actions in the public sphere, both domestically and internationally.

One such recent eruption happened during a visit of the Moldovan President to Brussels, the capital of EU. The President complained about Romania's alleged attempts of undermining Moldovan sovereignty. As a result, a number of international media outlets such as Financial Times joined the debate on Moldovan statehood, security and identity.

The Political Crisis in Romania: For or Against Democracy?

One Romanian blogger was wondering why Moldovan bloggers did not react in any way to the political crisis in the neighboring Romania.

For those interested, I recommend reading blogger Kosmopolit's recent posting which contains an interesting collection of opinions on this issue.

I personally think what is going on in Romania is a shame ... A very bad exampple of democratic practices. A very popular (backup up by over 50% of the population), visionary, reform-oriented, democratic president - Traian Basescu - is being suspended by an insecure, devided Parliament, manipulated by compromised leaders and narrow party interests. I wish the Romanian political elite would come to their senses, and think about the national interests for a change.

Regional Development in Perspective: Romania and Moldova

Previously on this blog I discussed the regional development policy in Japan. Last week I had the opportunity to learn first-hand about regional development in Romania in a study tour to the North-Eastern Development Region. Regional development in Romania was initiated in 1998 with passing of a related law, establishing 8 development regions. The process was driven by the availability of pre-accession European funds for large-scale development projects with regional impact. After passing of the law, each regional development council (decision-making body) created a regional development agency (executive body) to design and implement regional development for their respective regions.

I visited the North-Eastern Regional Development Agency, and was positively impressed by a couple of things: the organizational set-up and institutional capacity (excellent human resources management, result-oriented organizational culture, and partner-focused operations), the number of projects implemented (about 600), and the amount of funding invested in the region (over 130 million Euro). The most important indicator that is reported by regional development agencies is the absorption (of funds) rate, which for this region is as high as 85%. The key factors of success in case of the North-Eastern Development Region are: availability of funds, decentralization in planning and implementation, and institutional capacities.

How is this eight-year-Romanian experience in regional development relevant to Moldova where the law on regional development came into force just recently (16th of February 2007)? Although it is indeed too early to talk about the results of regional development in Moldova, one cannot ignore the current unknown variables that make any forecast of the impact of this policy an extremely difficult task. Although the Romanian and Moldovan laws are somewhat similar in their provisions, there are several underlying issues that might make regional development policy in Moldova a totally different story: 1) because Moldova is not an EU accession candidate country, it cannot benefit from the pre-accession funds available via PHARE, ISPA and SAPARD instruments which supported the regional development in Romania, 2) lack of access to these ‘traditional’ funds increases the need of the Moldovan central government to negotiate an individual development funding menu with the European Commission, which determines a high level of centralization and unpredictability in spending future regional development funds, 3) such a high degree of centralization and unpredictability will disallow proper institutional capacity building and development at the regional level, which in turn might result in inefficient project implementation and overall failure of regional development policy.

Moldova - Romania: Controversial Issue Open for Debate

Although I am very well aware that the previous poll is not the ideal way of depicting the public’s opinion on a certain issue, nevertheless the majority of those who voted think that Romania is not interfering into Moldovan internal affairs as the Moldovan government claims.

However, accurate information (which should be the basis for any rational decision and opinion) on this issue is scarce, which fully justifies the “don’t know” option of the poll. Only after doing some research on this issue and watching the last night edition of the PROTV Chisinau program In PROfunzime, did I conclude that, most likely Romania is just trying to help Moldovan citizens gain better access to EU, and is not threatening the country’s sovereignty.

As Vladimir Socor put it, “the dispute has escalated beyond issues of history and national identity, now seemingly revolving around Moldova’s continuation as a state.” The issue, a rather important one, is on the table, and open for debate in which I invite you all to participate.

Is Romania Interfering?

The latest official declaration of the Moldovan government regarding Romania's alleged interference with the country's internal affairs took many people by suprise, including myself. It can be accessed in Romanian here and in English here and here. This poll intends to determine how many people share this official opinion.

Later addition: For those interested in this issue, have a look at this article by Vladimir Socor of Jamestown Foundation, which sheds more light and provides a new perspective.