ROMANIA NEEDS TO RECALIBRATE ITS EU MEMBERSHIP

Romania must go beyond being simply a member state to defending and exercising its rights and uphold its national interests in the European decision-making process.

To be able to influence the process, Romanians first must be made aware of the policies and legislation coming out of Brussels and both the public and private sector need to be involved.  Romanian private companies need to know about the new regulations that may affect their operations before such regulations are transposed into national law. Without such knowledge it is impossible for Romanian companies to anticipate and plan their medium and long term strategies.

Romania has not yet understood that it must recalibrate its EU membership for important community space and adapt to the very complex game of European Affairs. For their part Romanian legislators need to learn the importance of keeping track of the activities of interest groups in Brussels. They should keep in mind that concrete proposals to change the draft of EU laws can only be made at the early stages of the process, with the potential influence of member states gradually diminishing over time.

Another issue that needs to be tackled is the low representation of Romanian entities in Brussels. As an example, Romanian regions do not maintain a high level presence over here , though in recent years there has been a timid emergence of a few regional offices. Much of the work is handled by officials acting on behalf of groups of counties that were arbitrarily linked together under Ceausescu and later designated as development regions. The EU encourages the establishment of partnership between different regional entities to develop relevant joint projects. But it is difficult to develop such partnerships without active networking. In the same manner, Romania does not have public and private or civil society representatives in Brussels. Under such conditions it is difficult for Romania to have full access to structural funds.

At EU summits Romanian leaders have just the same opportunity as their colleagues from other member states to speak up and they often do. But when it comes to decision making, especially during the last three years of the economic crisis Bucharest has barely been heard.

Another hurdle Romania faces is getting experienced staff to drive its diplomatic efforts. It takes time to generate critical mass and influence in meetings, not just at the ambassadorial table, but across all levels of the EU bureaucracy. When it comes to major decisions, it’s a big boy game and one must be assertive to steer the small circle that makes decisions.

Until Romanians both in the public and private sectors change their mindset regarding European affairs and engage in serious public policy advocacy, Romania won’t be able to pass the quality and credibility test required for accessing EU structural funds.  What Romania needs is a strategic vision along with strategic guidelines based on socio-economic analysis of its development priorities.

Romania has the largest territory in southeast Europe and it is the 7th in terms of population (21.5 million) among EU member states.