ROMANIA’S ACCESSION NEGOTIATIONS
Negotiations for EU membership are among the most complex and difficult international negotiations. The substance of these negotiations is given by the content of European legislation (acquis communautaire) and by the meanings of European policies. As such, the matter of negotiation is an enormous amount, and the stake is particular, especially from the perspective of the candidate state. In addition, the accession negotiations are asymmetrical, taking place between a very strong economic and political actor (the European Union) and a candidate country with much lower economic-social and political capabilities. At the same time, the negotiating power of the European Union is immense, compared to that of a candidate country, and Brussels has taken on a whole range of advantages since the start of the negotiation process. However, the accession negotiation must go in the win-win direction, being an integrative negotiation. This is because the interest of the European Union should be to integrate a new worthful member, making a definite contribution to the European integration process, while the candidate’s interest would be to achieve increased results of its own development and at the same time, to meet the challenges of the European integration process.
Romania’s accession to the European Union has been negotiated for nearly five years and has been aimed at drafting the Treaty of Accession to be agreed by the Member States, the European Institutions and Romania. At the European Council of 17 December 2004, all the mentioned actors agreed the negotiated text of the Treaty of Accession of Romania to the European Union, and on 25 April 2005 the document has beem signed. Its ratification by the European Parliament and the parliaments of the Member States followed, and on 1 January 2007 Romania became a member of the European Union. This was the objective of the accession negotiations that Romania led over a decade and a half ago.
The Government of Romania has committed that until the date of joining the European Union to finalize most of the shortcomings in the set of accession criteria and to participate as early as possible at all levels of integration, starting with the Internal Market, the Economic and Monetary Union, the Schengen Area, etc. For its part, the European Union has promised to continue the supportive approach of Romania’s full anchoring in the process of European integration, both economic and financial, but also institutional-political.
Negotiations on Romania’s accession to the European Union were not straightforward and lacking in divergences and collisions. Compared to the other candidate countries which were also in the process of accession negotiation, Romania has been treated with more rigidity and rigor, often also feeling the competition of some Member States for the redistribution of resources / power at the Internal Market level. And quite frequently, European negotiators followed analyzes and directions of the International Monetary Fund that were not totally appropriate to Romanian realities and did not have the European integration process in the forefront.
Differentiated treatment, with a disfavoring shading for Romania, continued especially after the accession negotiations were finalized and even after Romania became a member of the European Union. This situation was possible, first and foremost, thanks to the Romanian political leaders who, once admitted to the Union, did not continue to prepare the country for the competitive forces on the Internal Market, did not develop the administrative and regulatory capacity for the most efficient implementation of the European legislation and policies.In general, Romanian post-accession leaders did not have and not followed a European integration strategy for Romania, they haven’t internalized optimally the European economic and social development policies, treating European affairs rather as foreign policy than as the country’s domestic policy. As a result, the decade since joining the European Union has brought Romanian citizens only the benefits of contagion with the Internal Market, of the inclusion in the European Economic Area by European investors.
Therefore a few million Romanian citizens chose to integrate into more evolved European economies and societies, hoping that the Bucharest leaders will press for more attention to the process of European integration. And the European Commission was ineffective in monitoring the application in Romania of the EU Treaties, including the Accession Treaty, with a political rather than a managerial approach. At the same time, the European Council and the EU Council, together with the European Parliament, regarded Romania’s accession as a state holding several votes rather than as an actor to be included in the European integration process for the benefit of Romanian citizens and all European citizens. In fact, how the European Institutions and most Member States treated the new Member State Romania shows the problematic attitude of the European leaders who have not sufficiently prepared the European Union for the integration of the new members.
Romania’s Treaty of Accession to the European Union was signed almost at the moment when the European Union entered into what was called the „existential crisis” of the Union(2005). And just one year after Romania’s accession, the European Union has also fallen into a terrible financial and economic crisis. Even today, European decision-making processes are marked by the crisis of confidence in the European Union and by social and political turmoil.
In such a European and international context, Romania makes a similar figure to the entire European Union, showing an inadequate political, intellectual and economic leadership to the times in which we live and the desires of European citizens to live in a better Europe. That kind of European leadership is still expected (for how long?) to show the vision, courage, determination and ability to negotiate a refoundation of the European Union in order to meet the global challenges of the 21st century.
Vasile PUȘCAȘ
ABOUT VASILE PUŞCAŞ
Dr. Vasile PUȘCAȘ, professor at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca (Romania), is an International Relations scholar and a reputed former Romanian diplomat.
From 2000 to 2008, he was a member of the Romanian Parliament while during 2000-2004, as member of the Romanian Government, he also acted as the country’s Chief Negotiator for Romania’s accession to the EU after which, in December 2008, he became Romania’s first Minister for European Affairs.
During Pușcaș’s mandate as Chief Negotiator with the EU, Romania closed all negotiation chapters, obtaining a firm accession date – 1st of January 2007 – and also finalized the negotiations of the Accession Treaty (European Council, December 17,2004).
His expertise in International Relations was not only used for Romania’s negotiations with the EU; even before, during 1992-1994, as one of Romania’s diplomats in Washington, DC, he also negotiated the country’s Most Favored Nation Clause with the US.
Born in 1952, Vasile Pușcaș obtained a degree in history and social sciences at Babes Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, in 1976. In 1991, he pursued his interests further to complete a doctorate in history. His long career in the academic field began at the University of Babes-Bolyai. In 1995, he became the Dean at the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration and, in that same year, professor of International Relations at the Faculty of History and Philosophy. His academic career still continues, with courses at the International University Institute for European Studies, Gorizia- Italy, Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca where he also acts as PhD coordinator and Head of the Institute for European Research.
Between 1990-1991, he was also the co-director of the Centre for Democracy and Post-Communist Studies in Cluj-Napoca and consultant with the Manfred Wörner Foundation in Bucharest. Furthermore, he has been the director of the Master’s Program for the Management of International Affairs with the Institute for International Studies (ISI) and of the Journalism and Communication Training Centre. Between 2002-2007, he was Director of the Institute for Political Sciences and International Relations of the Romanian Academy.
Dr.Vasile Pușcaș became Director of the Romanian Cultural Centre in New York in 1991-1992, then Minister-Counsellor (DCM) and Acting Ambassador with the Romanian Embassy in the USA till 1994. He is the author of 34 volumes, co-author of 55 books, 4 academic textbooks on International Relations and European Integration, and of over 100 articles and essays. His particular fields of interest in research are International Relations, European Negotiations, Transatlantic Relations, Central and Eastern Europe within International Relations, as well as business relations and conflict management in Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th-21st Centuries; at present, he also acts as Member of the Board of Banca Transilvania SA.
