Rapsa Village, children going to school (Photo: digi24.ro) |
As I watched videos from remote villages where people still live
and die without electricity, paved roads, gravel roads, running water and sewer
systems, trudging through ankle deep mud during rains, I wondered what happened
to their standard of living in the twenty-seven years since communism “fell.”
Even though Romania became an EU member in 2007, the journey
to modernization and progress is still very slow in some regions as it was
evident during my visits. Romanians are smart, enterprising, and hard-working
people, often making do with so much less than the rest of the developed world,
but their journey is hampered by decades of brutal socialist centralized
planning and the endemic corruption born by such a system and the need to
survive.
On the question of roads, Brenciu explained that highways
under the care of the Transportation Ministry are usually well maintained but
county roads are not paved or are often neglected because they don’t have the
know-how or the funds necessary to fix them.
Interstate 1 or DN1 between the capital Bucharest and the northern
ski resort city of Brasov, a distance of only 170 km, in Brenciu’s opinion,
will never be an Autobahn in the near future. On the much sought route
Sibiu-Pitesti, the government is just now taking public bids. And the Sibiu-Arad/Timisoara
highway was built with “exaggerated efforts and mistakes which came to light as
soon as it was inaugurated.”
Former president Traian Basescu raised eyebrows when he declared
that “Romania does not need superhighways.” A 2012 referendum of 8 million
Romanians indicated the opposite. As Romanians’ standard of living has
improved, they bought hundreds of thousands of cars which now crowd the narrow roads.
Parking is so inadequate, like in many other European cities, that people park
everywhere, including sidewalks, sometimes blocking or slowing down traffic and
endangering pedestrians.
The former Minister of Finance under President Emil
Constantinescu, professor analyst Ilie Serbanescu, explained that both in Romania
and in the European Union (EU), there is interest in only one route,
Arad-Pitesti, to the exclusion of all others. It seems easier to drive to the capital of
Hungary, Budapest, in the west, where the infrastructure provides ease of transportation,
than to go south to the capital of Romania, Bucharest.
I also asked Brenciu about running water and sewer systems.
Surely Romania could easily provide for its citizens! Their former colonizers,
the Romans, had an elaborate sewer and water system almost two millennia ago!
Using European Union grants and loans, there are now fewer areas without connection
to water pipes except in distant and isolated villages.
The fact, that the government is still addressing problems
with water and sewer service in the 21st century, is a direct
reflection of the forced industrialization during the 20th century socialist
regime at the expense of the minimal needs of the forgotten Romanian citizens.
Such a centralized socialist economy produced one social catastrophe after
another that regional and local governments are still trying to overcome and resolve
today.
I asked Mircea Brenciu if he believed that political
corruption, so endemic in Romania now, can be eradicated. He mentioned a “traffic of influence” called
lobby that pushes issues to the limit of legality. The end of Ceausescu’s
dictatorial regime encouraged and launched “the great national competition of
personal financial gain” which led to today’s lobby-driven competition for political
power and control.
Brenciu believes that the country is going in the direction
of a police state again, of the socialist type he thought was dead and buried
in 1989. Many Romanians are no longer placing their trust in political leadership
or in people in general, but only in God. They realized that “it does not matter who votes, it only
matters who counts the votes.”
Brenciu was referring to the shenanigans of the two presidential
voting rounds that elected the current President Johannis over his competitor, Prime
Minister Ponta, who had personal counsel and advice from Gen. Wesley Clark. The web of global politics is difficult to
untangle.
On the Schengen Agreement, Brenciu explained that, even
though he is a “chronic European, Russo-phobe, and anti-communist,” he is
becoming a “Euro-skeptic” because of EU’s politics towards Romanians. Even
though Romania fulfills all conditions to be integrated into the Schengen Agreement,
some of the member-states are reluctant to accept it into their fold while
throwing their borders wide-open to the Muslim invasion from Africa and the
Middle East.
It appears that Europeans are offended by Romanian gypsies but
turn a blind eye to the violence and rapes by Muslims, going to great lengths
to cover their crimes. What do Romanian
gypsies do in Europe that is so offensive? Apparently pick-pocketing and
begging are “serious problems” for Europeans.
“Our gypsies are academicians compared to the savages coming
from Africa and Asia,” stated Brenciu.
What is the point of having the Schengen Agreement if “Europe will
continue on such an enormous and irresponsible scale the policy of allowing
into their countries the largest exodus of humanity in modern history?”
Paradoxically, the states that have the highest Muslim
penetration in Europe are the ones that are refusing Romania’s entrance into
the Schengen Agreement. There are currently 26 European countries, covering 400
million people, who can travel in the Schengen Area like a single state with
external border controls for travelers entering and exiting the area, but with
no internal border controls. Romanians have not been admitted to this
agreement, and they feel, rightfully so, as the black sheep of the European
Union.
Now that Romanians are members of the European Union, they
are no longer in control of their fate and their future, Brenciu concluded our interview.
Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2016
Ileana,
ReplyDeleteI feel bad for the Romanian people. From my perspective, the Syrian War was designed to create a mass exodus of criminals and terrorists into Western Civilization. With the 'assistance' of the U. N., I believe the 'refugees' have been vetted and each 'welcoming' nation will receive a pre-determined number of criminals and terrorists.
For countries like Romania, this is designed to prevent their economies and quality of life from rising from the ashes. For more developed countries, this is designed to bring their economies and quality life to ashes.
Until the 'invisible' puppeteer elites are exposed and held accountable for their heinous actions against mankind on all continents, the masses will continue to suffer under the iron fist of the invisible puppeteer elites.
A. J.
A.J., I agree. I feel sorry for them particularly because of their proximity to Turkey and their 500 year history of fighting the Ottoman Empire invasions.
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