Vivid Economics and Business May 2004

Regulars
ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS
Look not to Nato, the EU or US for saviour; all that can save Romania
are Romanians themselves

by Matei Paun
May 2004

I have seen the enemy, and it is us. If we are poor and backward, we have only ourselves to blame for our laziness and shortsightedness. If we are corrupt, it is because we lack morals. If we are last on most lists of European performance criteria (from inflation, to FDI, to highway kilometers per capita) it is not because we are a poor country lacking in natural resources or with an illiterate and disease-prone population.

The politicians that govern us were voted into power by ourselves. If we were fooled or tricked into voting for them, then it is because we were not sufficiently clever to see them for the crooks that they are. If we complain about a lack of political alternatives, then it is because we do not contribute to the creation of such alternatives. If the press is, for the most part, shallow and manipulative, then it is because we read, listen and watch it with abandon.

Nato has not changed these truths. The EU will not change anything either. The IMF, EBRD, EIB, OSCE, IFC or any other alphabet soup of international organisations will not save us from ourselves, no matter how much we would like them to do so. No, the solution to our problems will not be dictated to us by directives from Brussels, and neither will our economy be restructured as a result of conditional ìadjustment loansî granted to us by international financial institutions. No amount of investment by the EBRD will raise our living standards, ease the poverty of our pensioners or improve the education of our children.

Greece was economically stunted when it joined the EU and has remained the laggard since. As it was corrupt then so it is corrupt now. The prime minister of one of the founding members of the EU - Italy - has been nearly continuously on trial for corruption since first being voted into power, as he manipulates the media by his monopolistic grasp of it. Foreign institutions can only help us to the extent that we want to help ourselves. Fooling ourselves into believing that they will drag us along, kicking and screaming, is no more than comforting but dangerous self-delusion.

History is full of enough failed unreformed states towards which were unleashed planeloads of foreign advisers and consultants and billions of dollars and euros with no measurable positive result. Just as an obese person will not lose weight if he or she does not want to, neither will we evolve into a more civilised nation unless we choose to make it our goal and assume the commitments that go along with that.

We know perfectly well what to do in order to have a fully functioning market economy. Achieving economic growth while beating inflation is no longer a secret formula.

Educating our children to world class standards is not a feat which should challenge us, no more than our regular feats of sporting triumph in gymnastics. We perfectly understand what it means to have a lively, incisive but objective media. Ignorance and incompetence can no longer serve as excuses. We can no longer choose not to know.

We must all take responsibility for the choices we make as well as for those that we deliberately choose to ignore. We can no longer hide behind the excuses provided by what was once one of the harshest communist regimes in Europe. We must free ourselves from that legacy. Fear must be vanquished.

Humanity has demonstrated time and time again throughout its history that it is capable of extraordinary and radical transformation - just as it has demonstrated that complacency and mediocrity are equally prevalent in societies which desire nothing more. The choice is ours and ours alone.

An investment banker, Matei Paun has covered Romania since 1997, and can be contacted at mateipaun@aol.com