Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-15-Speech-3-208"
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"en.20041215.7.3-208"2
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Mr President, as a former ship’s captain, the newly-elected President of Romania, Traian Basescu, knows a thing or two about choppy waters, which gives him a considerable edge, for the ship of state of his native country, where he will be taking the helm, is currently facing rough seas. Moreover, Basescu will be the first to admit this frankly. In an interview with the
of 26 November, Basescu, who is at present the mayor of Bucharest, gave this explanation of why he is striving to turn his country round politically: ‘The problem is corruption which, in this country, has been elevated to a form of government’.
The report by Mr Moscovici is just as clear about Bucharest’s failings as it makes its way to Brussels, and we sincerely appreciate the way in which he has done this, quite rightly tracing Romania’s shortcomings in terms of all the accession criteria, including the political conditions. In the discussion of previous reports of this House about Romania as a candidate country, I asked for attention to be paid to violations of the freedom of the press. Unfortunately, this report mentions these violations again in Paragraph 8. It is as plain as day that there is physical aggression against investigative journalists, and that the government exerts pressure on financially weak media.
In his recent book ‘Threatened journalists, beaten journalists’, the author and journalist Malin Bot confirmed this depressing image. The book is an outright indictment of the prevailing press restraint in Romania. Mr Basescu and his political sympathisers therefore have their work cut out. Incidentally, in our regions, in Western Europe, we should take note of what Malin Bot has to say about the dubious role of Western publishers who have bought up many Romanian papers, and who, in his words, ‘do not come to Romania to defend democracy, but simply to make money’.
I hope that a new Romanian Government takes the European accession criteria entirely seriously from the word go. In the final analysis, it is not fair to blame them for the commitments that have not been complied with by the Nastase government. This list is long and weighty. Moreover, time goes on; it is fortunate, with the desired accession date of 1 January 2007 in mind, that the incoming President Basescu realises this all too well. That is why he deserves all our attention and support in this undoubtedly difficult period. This House expects the Commission to strictly enforce the security mechanism agreed upon with Bucharest.
To finish off, I should like to draw Bucharest’s attention to one paragraph in the Moscovici report: ‘calls on it to speed up the restitution of property and adopt legislation on the restitution of churches’. At the same time, I would ask the Council and Commission to closely monitor the implementation of this long drawn-out issue. The Dutch Presidency has already made a pledge to that effect to its own parliament. In a fine review in a German quality newspaper yesterday, I read a razor-sharp satire on the political degeneration of Romania under post-Communist rule. The author aptly parodied the title of Prime Minister Nastase’s campaign document entitled: ‘From Karl Marx to Coca-Cola’, claiming that a document entitled ‘From Karl Marx to Al Capone’ would be just as truthful. We very much hope that Romania, under President Basescu, will break this persistent political spell. The surprising outcome of the second round of the presidential elections appears to be an encouraging sign of this."@en1
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