In Romania the efforts after 1989 to restore a democratic regime experienced noticeable difficulties even at the beginning (miners coming to Bucharest to retaliate students, intellectuals or new political parties who protested against the government, repression from authorities against the new civil society which tried to merge etc.) and failed in the semi-oligarchic regime1 of 2004. It was not the first time in history when this kind of squalor of political regimes appeared. Robert Dahl2 characterizes a political regime as a function of a binary system, namely participation (defined with regards to the right to participate) and public contestation. Based on these two terms Dahl portrays four ideal types of political sytems: (1) Closed hegemony (dictatorship) in which both terms are limited. (2) Inclusive hegemony in which there is participation, but no public contestation. (3) Competitive oligarchy in which there is no participation, but there is public contestation (4) Polyarchy (democracy) in which you have both participation and public contestation. The political system can develop or regress among these four ideals types. The Romanian one is neither a polyarchy nor a competitive oligarchy, but something in between, a semi-oligarchic regime. In this case there is participation, but a restricted one: citizens are only called one in four years to perpetuate a political regime. Between the two elections the same citizens are not asked to participate in public affairs of their polis, a reality which was described by Professor Daniel Barbu as a syntagm of the absent republic3 . Concerning the second term of the binary system, namely public contestation, some remarks are necessary: from inside the country, the contestation is in most cases censored by the government, but on the other hand the same contestation come into view when it is set by the European Union, due to the political relations concluded by the Association Agreement with Romania. In that context, the reaction of the European Union, who exercises Dahl's public contestation, must be analysed in detail.
The Emperor is exposed
In fact, the European reactions were more than predictable. The very important decision taken in 1999 at Helsinki to start the negotiations with Romania and Bulgaria was based on the fulfilment of the Copenhagen political criteria set up in 1993, explicitly the accomplishment of rule of law, democracy and human rights4 . At that moment (1999), Romania accomplished the main political criteria and on these grounds was accepted to start the negotiations with EU. From that moment, the accession remained just a matter of time, a difficult task but irrevocable since all the states which started the negotiations also concluded the discussions sooner or later. But what was accomplished in 1999, that is to say the political criteria are contested explicitly in 2004. The same country appeared less as a democracy (polyarchy) and started sliding towards a system comparable with the one of Lukasenko in Belarus. This political malady is a state of fact and was discovered unambiguously by a Parliamentarian Christian Democrat, Arie Oostlander. He was shortly after followed by other colleagues (e.g. Baroness Emma Nicholson). The Baroness even asked Europol to investigate the connections between Romanian authorities with organized crime concerning the trafficking of children.
Manipulation practices: lobbying in Brussels for the government.
The semi-oligarchic regime reacted insolently, minimised what became evident for many Europeans: PSD (the Social Democrat Party, which is the governmental party) is not a decisive factor for the accession of Romania to EU, but ex adverso a reason for the suspension of negotiations or re-orientation of them and the main cause for delaying sine die the date of the same accession.
Secondly, the Romanian oligarchs try to manipulate the European contestations in various ways: First, they said that Mr. Oostlander tries to stop the progresses of PSD because he is a fan of Victor. Ciorbea (the leader of the Christian Democrats in Romania) and he wanted a revenge because the Romanian Christian Democrats lost the last election (in reality A. Oostlander did not observe a functional Christian Democratic Party in Romania). Secondly, they said that the European deputies are in the electoral campaign for the future election, so they wanted to boost their image. Third, they claimed that the European Union has difficulties after accession of the first ten countries and doesn't need another poor country inside its borders. One can notice that the last argument is used in a very cynical way because Romania won't join EU in May and this is mainly because of the appalling politics of PSD.
It is also interesting to notice the tactics of the Government when it comes to the diplomatic declaration of various civil servants from the
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European Commission. E.g. comparing with the EU MP's who have freedom of expression and who are protected by the parliamentarian immunity. The civil servants of the Commission don't have the same status. They are appointed and not elected. For this reason they are forced to talk in a diplomatic way and to use formulas of politeness in their criticism. Exploiting this insignificant praise from various European officials, the government tries to cover-up the majority opinion in EU according with which Romania is not prepared to join EU in 2007. Moreover, the only method founded by the government to improve the political and economic backwardness is ...to make lobbying in Brussels.
A vote of confidence and a stimulant for the Government
Via the Commission of External Relations, the European Parliament launched an amendment which recommended to re-orient the strategy of negotiations, permanent monitoring and deploying the weakness of the justice and the freedom of the press. It seems that this criticism is unsuccessful: nobody feels guilty or resigned but there were some bizarre reactions: the government considers the amendment ...constructive and the same text is considered being... a vote of confidence for the government. Moreover, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared: "finally we are doing well after some weeks of preoccupation".
The manipulation has a political reason: the only trump card of the PSD government was the successful story with Romania joining NATO and the future accession of the EU. The same government didn't say a word about the main reason for the NATO accession, namely the terrorist attack of 11th of September and about the fact that the initial Romanian negotiation with the EU started in 1999 at Helsinki, the rest being just a matter of time. That time was lost because the country won't join EU in May 2004 together with the other ten Eastern European nations and it is even behind Bulgaria.
Types of contestations
If the Romanian opposition seems to be very weak, there are alternative sources of contestation, as we have seen. Arie Oostlander, Emma Nicholson, Günter Verheugen, Jonathan Scheele (Head of Delegation of the European Commission in Romania) or Michael Guess (the US ambassador) or other officials from the West. The contestation which comes from this sphere also has another reason, a financial one. As the MP Joe Leinen noticed, a lot of EU money (PHARE, SAPARD, etc) was redirected into the pockets of local oligarchs5 . This money was paid by EU citizens and their reaction when they find out, is predictable. For all of these reasons the reorientation of strategy of accession of Romania, it is in fact a public contestation from the West and particularly from the EU.
On the other hand, it is regrettable that the Romanian opposition did not produce a credible alternative of the actual government and didn't possess personalities who can raise public enthusiasm. The image of Victor Ciorbea (a Christian Democrat) who came to Brussels to lobby for the PSD government shows serious misunderstanding of the term "opposition". The recent failure of the same opposition to introduce a motion of censure against the government concerning the European integration shows almost inextricable dysfunctions.
Still, the political parties have time enough to organize a coherent electoral campaign and to present a real political alternative to the current semi-oligarchic regime.
The responsibility of the electorate also remains to be seen at the end of this year during the November elections. Generally speaking, the polyarchy can be reinstituted by practising reasonable voting behaviour and by giving up to the traditional fatalism, which is still dominant in the rural areas of this country.
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1. The difference between a democratic regime and oligarchy was underlined by Aristotle in his work, Politics and is based on the following statement: in democracy the sovereignty is held by the people but in oligarchy by the few rich ones.
2. See, Robert A Dahl, Polyarchy. Participation and Opposition, Yale Univ. Press, 1971
3. See, Daniel Barbu, Republica Absenta, Nemira, 1999
4 . The other two criteria concern the existence of a functioning market economy and the ability to take on the obligations of membership.
5. See, the recent scandal in which some directors of the Suceava Town Hall were discovered appropriating significant amount of SAPARD funds.
Victor Iulian TUCĂ
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