euro|topics - Rodica Culcer

Culcer, Rodica

4 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.

Revista 22 - Romania | 05/08/2008

The limits of integration

The weekly La Revista 22 reflects on the integration of the Roma in Romania and Europe: "If we are honest and have studied a little history we realise that the idea of integrating the Roma into a regulated society is very new. For centuries the Roma have lived on the fringes of society, whether in Persia, in the Byzantine or Ottoman Empires, Great Britain or Central and Eastern Europe. They profited from the weak and corrupt doings of the majority, just as they do in today's Romania, where without the corruption of the municipal authorities and the police the Roma clans could not get rich. They cannot be integrated overnight, nor can they be put under pressure to integrate, and above all they cannot be integrated into a weak and corrupt state in which it is more profitable to break the law than to respect it. This is evident in the integration of the Roma in Spain, which has been more successful than in Central and Eastern Europe. ... Unfortunately neither the non-governmental organisations nor the Romanian government nor the EU have an answer to the question of what sense it makes to invest billions of euros in Roma programmes that are organised by weak, incompetent and corrupt authorities."

Revista 22 - Romania | 17/07/2008

The EU ignores the situation in Romania

The EU has known about the extent of corruption in Romania for a long time. An experts' report from 2007 that was kept under wraps was recently published by the British economics magazine The Economist. The report, whose findings describe how the struggle against corruption in Romania has suffered setbacks at all levels, was commissioned by the European Commission but never used. The weekly Revista 22 now calls on the Romanians to take responsibility: "Europe does not lack information about the real situation in Rumanian justice and politics, what Europe lacks ... is the courage and the necessary determination to defend the rule of law and to fight corruption. These deficits ... and the lack of institutional instruments to punish states that deviate from European standards allow the Rumanian parliamentarians to use all kinds of tricks to defend their own shameful interests and to make a mockery of the entire EU. ... It is no use waiting for Europe to solve our structural problems, as happened before we joined . ... The Romanians need to take their fate in their own hands and decide whether they need a state based on the rule of law and an efficient policy for fighting corruption."

Evenimentul Zilei - Romania | 22/06/2007

Romania is a model pupil in the EU dispute

The calls of Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, on the "new EU member states not to make the life of the EU more complicated" remind Rodica Culcer of a much more vicious comment made by French ex-President Jacques Chirac in 2003. Back then, the issue at hand was the participation of EU countries in the Iraq war, and Chirac said the new NATO members should keep their mouths shut. "While Romania couldn't shut up back then, it's now behaving like a model pupil... There is no discussion about either the new EU treaty or the voting system. At least head of state Traian Basescu explained shortly before he left for Brussels,... that he didn't intend to support the positions of either the Poles or the British. But what good does it do us to uncritically adopt the position of the major Western European states? Perhaps we should be a little more eurosceptic, even if it means getting a dressing down from Barroso?"

Evenimentul Zilei - Romania | 01/06/2007

The lessons learned from Cannes

Romania's success in Cannes has taught the country that it can export films as well as footballers to the West, writes Rodica Culcer. "It's hard to believe that the pompous and affected West, which turns up its nose at all things Eastern, is taking a closer look at Romanian films that force it to confront the dark, inhuman universe of communism... But one of the lessons we have learned from Cannes is that we need to think about state cultural funding... What if the main criterion for cultural funding were to honour the courage to deal with difficult topics that don't just present the country in a favourable light, but tell the truth about us as a nation, as a society and as human beings? The films of our young directors reveal more about communism and post-communism than any politician."

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