Romania In Presa Internationala

[pixelconscious]

Mi se pare util si interesant sa mai vedem ce spun altii despre noi. Vad ca pe site-ul Guvernului nu se mai oboseste nimeni sa actualizeze sectiunea cu rapoartele Misiunilor Diplomatice ale Romaniei. Asa ca daca aveti un articol din presa straina, va rog sa-l impartiti si cu restul forumului.

 

Incep eu:

 

 

 

 

U-Md. Teacher Heads Inquiry In Romania

Friday, July 28, 2006; A16

The Washington Post

By Jim Compton

 

Probe of Communist Past Stirs Backlash

 

BUCHAREST, Romania -- Working out of a human rights office in a former mansion in this Balkan capital, a University of Maryland professor is leading an official inquiry into Romania's ugly communist past. His work has stirred a vicious backlash from people who want that past left alone.

 

Vladimir Tismaneanu, born in Romania and now a U.S. citizen, heads a national commission appointed by President Traian Basescu earlier this year. "A democratic political community cannot be built on amnesia," said Tismaneanu, 55, an energetic man who favors jeans and casual shirts.

 

The commission's 20 staff experts, drawn from the Romanian academic world, are poring over scholarly research and papers in state archives. "Our goal is not to break new ground," Tismaneanu said in an interview, "but to bring together the mountain of existing material, with every statistic, every fact, about our communist past."

 

His commission, which includes historians, political scientists and a philosopher, has no power to issue subpoenas or bring formal charges. Another commission, appointed by Parliament, probes allegations of crimes by individuals.

 

But Basescu has said that the Tismaneanu panel's report will become "an official document of the Romanian state" and that he will seek a parliamentary endorsement for it. Plans call for the report to form the basis of a textbook on communism for Romanian high schools.

 

In the years since communism's fall here in 1989, Romania has become a close U.S. ally, sending troops to Iraq and agreeing to a long-term U.S. military presence on its soil. President Bush hosted Basescu at the White House on Thursday.

 

The man Basescu appointed to catalogue the four-decade communist era is a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland's College Park campus and the author of standard works on Romanian communism and on Eastern Europe after the revolutions of 1989.

 

He grew up in Romania under communism, earning a BA degree at the University of Bucharest in 1974. He left the country in 1981 and later campaigned against the dictatorship of President Nicolae Ceausescu, speaking on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America.

 

Romania's sometimes halting steps toward democracy since Ceausescu's overthrow in 1989, along with the persistence of corruption, have hindered the country's advance toward membership in the European Union, set for 2007. Hundreds of former high-ranking communists and secret police agents continue to hold top positions in government and business.

 

The Conservative Party leader, Sen. Dan Voiculescu, was recently accused by Romanian newspapers of operating decades ago under the code name "Felix" and furnishing economic reporting to the much-feared Securitate -- the KGB of communist Romania. After initially denying the allegations, he called a news conference at which he confirmed them but made no apology.

 

"I collaborated, just as millions of Romanians collaborated," Voiculescu said, adding that "no one was injured by my reports." He has abandoned a bid to become deputy prime minister.

 

Former prime minister Adrian Nastase, meanwhile, is the target of three criminal investigations by Romania's anti-corruption agency and has resigned as Social Democrat Party chief and speaker of the lower house of Parliament. He is accused of taking bribes to make political appointments and of receiving improper campaign contributions during an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2004.

 

Despite many obstacles, some victims of communism have managed to win important victories. Doina Cornea, a gutsy professor of French who is widely considered the leading anti-communist dissident to have remained in the country, demanded and got her security files. She received two wooden boxes containing about five feet of records, including surveillance photographs.

 

Sitting recently in the book-lined studio of her 19th-century cottage in Cluj-Napoca, capital of the Romanian region of Transylvania, she displayed handfuls of pictures. One showed a neighbor looking over the fence, another the uniformed policeman who stood menacingly in front of her house for more than a year. She was followed everywhere, jailed and roughed up for leading protests.

 

Cornea noticed that one very knowledgeable informer was designated "X." She demanded to know who the snoop was and, two years later, was informed that "X" was Eugen Uricaru, president of the writers' union. Cornea said she wrote to Uricaru and told him she'd learned what he did. When he failed to reply, she waited a month, then held a news conference to unmask him. Uricaru did not seek the union presidency again.

 

The Romanian novelist Augustin Buzura also obtained his security files and found that 56 informers, including close friends and associates, had reported on him.

 

The 67-year-old writer, winner of the country's highest literary prizes, expresses skepticism that any commission can manage the hydra-headed issue of communism. "Practically, the communist era has not ended," he said. "The mentality is the same. No matter how extraordinary a commission may be, it cannot fathom in a period of six months the catastrophe that was communism."

 

Tismaneanu, who commutes between College Park and Bucharest, works out of a mansion in the capital that houses the Group for Social Dialogue, a political and human rights organization formed during the 1989 revolution. The house was once the scene of parties held by Nicu Ceausescu, the dictator's son.

 

Tismaneanu shrugs off criticism that his parents were committed communists and that his credibility is hurt by his friendship with Ion Iliescu, who held various posts under Ceausescu and served twice as president after 1989.

 

Nationalist politicians have harassed Tismaneanu relentlessly. The extremist Greater Romania Party published articles asserting that he was a Zionist operative and stooge of the Americans.

 

"A Greater Romania Party senator made a speech in Parliament," he recalled, "about 'five reasons why Tismaneanu should not head the commission,' and reason number three was that I was a Jew."

 

The mainstream newspaper Ziua printed an allegation that Tismaneanu had been a Securitate agent as a student in the United States, a story for which it later apologized. (A government agency certified that his political past is clean.)

 

He has also drawn criticism for supporting the war in Iraq. "Saddam himself was a weapon of mass destruction," he has said of the deposed Iraqi president.

 

Meanwhile, he continues his research. Is closure possible? He is careful to say that his campaign is about moral recovery, not vengeance.

 

"I believe we are able to somehow approach the past in a way that combines both analysis and compassion," he said.

[perfidus]

Foarte la obiect.

Subliniez unul din pasajele esentiale, ce zice Buzura:

"Practically, the communist era has not ended," he said. "The mentality is the same. No matter how extraordinary a commission may be, it cannot fathom in a period of six months the catastrophe that was communism."

Cum sa ne accepte occidentul in halul asta? Se pare ca n-au avut de ales.

Edited August 1, 2006 by perfidus

[Vijelia]

http://www.roembus.org/

 

http://berlin.mae.ro/index.php?lang=ro&id=803

 

http://www.mae.ro/index.php?unde=doc&i...lnk=2&cat=4

[tolin]

Cum sa ne accepte occidentul in halul asta? Se pare ca n-au avut de ales.

Daca ne lasa pe afara, e mai rau pentru ei.

[mr_]

Foarte la obiect.

Subliniez unul din pasajele esentiale, ce zice Buzura:

"Practically, the communist era has not ended," he said. "The mentality is the same. No matter how extraordinary a commission may be, it cannot fathom in a period of six months the catastrophe that was communism."

Cum sa ne accepte occidentul in halul asta? Se pare ca n-au avut de ales.

 

 

Pai la capitolul comunism, nici occidentul nu e mai breaz. Doar ca nu-si da seama de asta. De multe ori cand ii aud vorbind despre viitor, am asa o senzatie de deja-vu ...

[pixelconscious]

Driving the Scenic Route to European Union Membership

New York Times

By Nicholas Kulish

 

Traveling through Turkey last year with an international group of journalists, I heard a consistent message from government officials and human rights groups: keep the European Union talks going. What surprised me was that many said the process was more important than membership. The talks need to keep going or reforms will grind to a halt, the argument went, so let's worry about the details later. The message sounded Machiavellian. But I grasped its meaning a few months later as I sat at a Ukrainian border station in a beat-up Volkswagen Golf, trying to cross into Moldova.

 

"Present? Present?" the border guard asked, holding up my CD player. His comrades were inside our car, searching every nook and cranny. I smiled and told the guard I didn't understand. He smiled back, gave the player a whack with his billy club and permitted me to keep my broken Discman. Then we were inexplicably told we couldn't leave the country. In retrospect, I might as well have given it to him. It could have saved me 30 hours of desperate searching, through the night and into the following day, for a station where the border police would let us pass without stealing our car or demanding a bribe higher than we were willing to pay. The asking price at the next stop was $200, a lot more than I paid for the CD player.

 

The travel and foreign affairs writer Robert Kaplan writes that if you want to get to know a place you have to move on the ground. Fly into the capital and look around for a couple days before flying out again and you learn nothing. After logging several thousand miles in that trusty Golf in Eastern Europe last year, I'm inclined to agree. A stopover in Kiev and a visit to Warsaw wouldn't be so different. Both are scarred by war and Stalinism, beautiful in places and hideous in others. Truck stops at dusk in the boonies are another story. In Ukraine I feared each trip to a roadside bathroom might be my last.

 

Entering Ukraine was as challenging as leaving. After a four-hour wait in a line of cars that hadn't moved, my companion and I finally realized that we had to bribe drivers camped out ahead to get to the border station. There the agents tried to impound our car, or generously suggested that we sell it to a friend who materialized, in Mephistophelian fashion, seemingly out of nowhere.

 

I had both my worst and best times in places like Sevastopol and Odessa. But the open, daily corruption was difficult to take. A form of paranoia sets in when a shakedown for a bribe is an hourly occurrence on the highway. A gray uniform and a black-and-white traffic baton become the most frightening sight. I was glad to hear in July that President Viktor Yushchenko disbanded the traffic police force, but recent turmoil in the government tempers optimism about the country's future.

 

We cheered out loud, in an almost tearful swell of relief, as we re-entered civilization, crossing the border into Romania. Romania, another former Communist dictatorship is my idea of civilization? The answer is absolutely, because of that tiny little blue flag with yellow stars - the banner of the European Union - at the crossing point. Let me be clear: Romania is not yet a member, and still the contrast with a country like Ukraine was night and day. What had been an hourly ritual of bribes, doling out the three C's - cash, Coke and cigarettes - to machine pistol-wielding cops, abruptly ended.

 

We drove the length of Romania and the breadth of its European Union-accession comrade Bulgaria without once being solicited for a bribe. Romania and Bulgaria have their own problems, but it's doubtful that either would trade places with Ukraine, their Black Sea neighbor to the north. The difference throughout the drive was clear: countries on the E.U. invite list seemed more stable than those outside the velvet rope. Debate always centers on joining the union, but the greater improvement seems to come from the invitation. It's like a stamp of approval for nervous investors and political cover for reformers. "We don't want to allow Kurdish-language radio and television broadcasts, but the European Union is making us," Turkish officials can tell, and more importantly have told, hardliners.

 

Through its guest-worker program, Germany, the E.U.'s largest member, has bound its fortunes to Turkey's. But all of Europe needs a stable neighbor to the southeast. The alternative could be flare-ups with Greece and Cyprus, lost leverage over human rights concerns, most notably in Kurdish areas, and an even bigger mess in the vicinity of Iraq.

 

European Union members remained deadlocked over the weekend on holding membership talks with Turkey. A last-minute deal could get the process moving, but every step seems harder than the last. To understand what Turkey would look like without even a distant promise of membership, perhaps European officials could take a spin through Ukraine. My advice: bring Marlboros and money in small denominations. You don't get change from corrupt cops.

[zalmoxis]

Hai mai zau cand ma gandesc si la ce comisiii si para comisii mai sunt si pe la yankei !!!..Si asa se freaca si la aia birocratia !!.Basca ca termenii astia, "comunist" "comunism" samd sunt atat de departe de semnificatia lor...Nu stiu zau da' eu unul m-am saturat sa ne topt arate uni si altii cat de corupti suntem da' la ei in ograda nu se uite...Ma asteptam ca Kofi Anan sau cum il chema pe mai marele ONU sa isi dea demisia dupa ce a facut fi-sui super afaceri cu petrilul Irak-ului da' neah !!Si vin si ne arata pe noi cu dejtu' ...Cah!!

[pixelconscious]

Adevarat, birocratia lor este poate mai pronuntata decat a noastra. Dar articolul aduce o nota pozitiva Romaniei.

 

We cheered out loud, in an almost tearful swell of relief, as we re-entered civilization, crossing the border into Romania...

 

We drove the length of Romania and the breadth of its European Union-accession comrade Bulgaria without once being solicited for a bribe...

 

 

Saracii, daca veneau din Ungaria in Romania s-ar fi luat cu mainile de cap )">

 

 

 

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Romania a primit un review foarte bun in urma exercitiului Immediate Response '06 - exercitiu al trupelor armate SUA/Bulgaria/Romania care a avut loc in Bulgaria, la Novo Selo.

 

 

Articolul si mai multe poze la http://www.hqusareur.army.mil

 

 

After a hard day of training at the Novo Selo Training Area in central Bulgaria, Specialists Jeremy Taylor and James Camberg watch as Sgt. 1st Class Richard Untaru, of the Romanian Army’s, 29th Infantry Battalion “Red Scorpions”, assembles one of their M-16A2 rifles. Taylor and Camberg, both of Bravo Battery, 1st Battalion, 94th Field Artillery, along with Untaru are participating in Immediate Response 06, a joint training exercise in Bulgaria. Photo by Sgt. John Queen, 1AD Public Affairs.

 

 

Known as the “twin scorpions” by their colleagues in the Romanian Army’s 29th Infantry “Red Scorpion” Battalion, the brothers Tudose, take a break during training at the Novo Selo Training area in central Bulgaria. Soldiers of the Romanian, Bulgarian and American armies are training together in a joint exercise named Immediate Response 06. Photo by Sgt. John Queen, 1AD Public Affairs.

 

 

Romanian Soldiers provide covering fire during the assault on a suspected terrorist base during a Military Operations in Urban Terrain training scenario in Novo Selo, Bulgaria. The MOUT site is a major training area for the trilateral exercise Immediate Response 06, which involves about 800 U.S. Army, Europe; Bulgarian and Romanian Soldiers. The exercise began July 17 and goes through Friday. Photo by Gary Kieffer, USAREUR Public Affairs.

 

 

Romanian Staff Sgt. Richard Untaru of the 26th Infantry Regiment Red Scorpions, and Pfc. Ronald Ricks, a Soldier with the U.S. 1st Armored Division, escort a “terrorist” during an air assault exercise in Romania during Exercise Immediate Response 06. U.S. Army photo.

 

 

U.S. and Romanian Soldiers demonstrate teamwork while clearing a building during an air assault mission in Romania for Exercise Immediate Response 06. Photo by Spc. Andrew Orillion, 1st Armored Division Public Affairs.

 

 

A convoy of Romanian Soldiers react to a simulated Improvised Explosive Device detonating during convoy-ambush training at Novo Selo, Bulgaria. Allied Soldiers from the three countries are participating in Immediate Response 06, which involves about 800 troops, and is part of USAREUR’s Theater Engagement program to increase NATO interoperability among partner nations’ militaries. It began July 17 and ends Friday.

 

 

Having just cleared a room during MOUT (military oriented urban training) training, a Romanian Soldier pulls rear guard as the stack prepares to exit a building during Immediate Response 2006. Immediate Response 06 is a trilateral training exercise involving the U.S., Bulgarian and Romanian Armies. Photos by Spc. Andrew Orillion, 1st Armored Division Public Affairs.

 

 

 

 

LE: Pacat ca bietii nostrii soldati merg la razboi tot cu AKM-urile alea vechi de cand lumea si pamantul. La cati bani a invartit MApN-ul cred ca puteau sa cumpere macar 100 de arme mai bune.

Edited August 2, 2006 by pixelconscious

[pixelconscious]

Romania Oil Rig In Persian Gulf Attacked

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

AP

By Alison Mutler, Associated Press Writer

 

Romania said Iranian warships opened fire and seized a Romanian oil rig Tuesday off the coast of Iran, holding its workers for hours in an incident stemming from a commercial dispute.

 

Sergiu Medar, a national security adviser to Romanian President Traian Basescu, said the seizure resulted from a commercial disagreement that Iran is treating "in an extreme way." He gave no details.

 

The crew of 27 was held for several hours on the rig's heliport before being freed following demands from Romania's Foreign Ministry, according to Gabriel Comanescu, president of the private company GSP, which owns the rig.

 

Iran has not commented on the incident.

 

GSP said a number of Iranian warships fired in the direction of the rig, and troops from the vessels boarded and seized it. Comanescu said one of the cranes was destroyed in the attack.

 

Comanescu provided few details on the causes of the incident but said that an Iranian court had ordered the rig to remain in Iranian waters pending resolution of a legal dispute. He said it also involves a Dubai-based company and two Iranian companies. The Iranian companies' representatives also boarded the rig on Tuesday, he added.

 

The Romanian Foreign Ministry said it summoned Iran's ambassador to explain the incident and that Romania's charge d'affaires in Iran was instructed to lodge an official protest.

 

A Romanian lawmaker who leads the left-wing opposition accused Iran of taking a hostile action against Romania. He called on President Basescu to lead an emergency meeting of the country's supreme defense council.

 

"The oil rig Orizont is Romanian territory," said Mircea Geoana, who heads the Social Democratic Party. Geoana served as foreign minister from 2000-2004.

 

GSP, also known as the Oil Services Group, is a private Romanian company established in 2004 that operates six offshore rigs that it bought from Romania's largest oil company, Petrom.

 

Two of its rigs are operating near the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf as part of a deal signed between Petrom, GSP and Dubai-based Oriental Oil Co.

 

The Orizont rig was built in 1987 and weighs 13,000 tons. It has been moored near Kish island in the Persian Gulf since October 2005, Romanian political consul in Tehran Yujin Chira told The Associated Press.

 

Kish, in the southern end of the Persian Gulf, houses the offices of about 100 Iranian and foreign oil companies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iranian Forces Seize Romanian Oil Rig

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Financial Times

By Alex Barker

 

Iranian armed forces attacked and forcibly seized a Romanian-owned oil rig operating in the Gulf on Tuesday, after a contractual dispute with its owners.

 

Grup Servicii Petroliere (GSP), an oil services group, said its Orizont rig had come under fire from a gunboat on Tuesday morning, after the crew refused to allow officials from a subsidiary of the Iranian state oil company on board.

 

The incident, which led to a minor diplomatic dispute between the two countries, marks a violent turn in a contractual wrangle between the Romanian group and a subcontractor.

 

The gunfire is understood to have damaged a crane on board as well as strafing the legs of the rig and accommodation areas for staff.

 

None of the 26-strong crew, including 19 Romanian and seven Indian nationals, was injured. The rig was on Tuesday under guard by an Iranian naval vessel, although the Iranian soldiers had left.

 

"It is totally crazy," Gabriel Comanescu, president of GSP, a private company that owns six rigs, told the Financial Times. "The Iranians took my men hostage. This must be the first- ever rig to be occupied by force in peacetime."

 

Mr Comanescu said he was in touch with staff on board until armed men in camouflage – who scaled the legs of the rig – cut off communications. He was able to speak to his staff again in the late afternoon.

 

It is unclear who ordered the operation to seize the rig.

 

Hamid-Reza Asefi, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, declined to comment on yesterday's incident. But Iran's Revolutionary Guards, a key element of Iran's armed forces, have substantial involvement in the country's energy sector.

 

GSP has been in a contractual dispute with Oriental Oil Kish, a private Dubai-based drilling contractor that had leased its rigs to drill wells for Petroiran Development Company, a unit of Iran's state-owned oil company.

 

The board of Oriental includes senior Iranian political and military figures, who are believed still to include Cyrus Nasseri, a veteran diplomat who played a leading role in negotiations with Europe over Iran's nuclear programme. Oriental has been the target of a corruption investigation in Iran.

 

GSP says it terminated its contract with Oriental after the group fell behind with payments and after doubts about the legal basis of its contract came to light.

 

Last week the Romanian company towed the Fortuna, its second rig in Iranian waters, to the United Arab Emirates.

 

GSP says it had permission to do so but Iranian oil industry officials later claimed GSP had "hijacked" the rig and they demanded its return.

 

In spite of high demand for offshore drilling rigs in Iran to exploit its oil and gas resources, few international operators choose to lease their rigs there. The Orizont, which was moored near the island of Kish, was one of only four foreign-owned rigs operating in Iran.

 

It emerged last year that Oriental had had business dealings with a subsidiary of Halliburton, the US oil services group.

 

Additional reporting by Gareth Smyth in Tehran

[Moshu]

Curentul:

 

Scandalul comercial iscat între compania autohtonă Grup Servicii Petroliere (GSP) şi autorităţile iraniene a făcut, ieri, o victimă colaterală: cotidianul "Curentul". Intrigaţi că în materialul publicat ieri dimineaţă de ziarul nostru cu privire la "războiul" din GSP şi autorităţile de la Teheran am ridicat - pe baza declaraţiilor oficialilor companiei de la noi - o serie de semne de întrebare atat în privinţa tranzacţiilor derulate între compania de la noi şi Oriental Oil Company Dubai, cat şi a relaţiilor dintre oficialii companiei romaneşti şi un iranian extrem de influent (dar deosebit de controversat) Ciryus Nasseri, Gabriel Comănescu - preşedintele CA al Upetrom Group Management (entitate ce deţine 90% din capitalul social al GSP) - a interzis accesul reporterilor noştri la conferinţa de presă pe care au organizat-o ieri în scopul de a pune la zid autorităţile iraniene.

...

 

Pentru tot reportajul, cititi aici.

 

E de necrezut ce increngaturi mafiote. Aproape de razboi cu Iranul pentru ca firma GSP are probleme comerciale...

[pixelconscious]

Despre mult discutatul statul al imigrantilor Est Europeni. Pentru cine nu are rabdare sa citeasca tot articolul, poate sa parcurga ultimul paragraf

 

 

Workers At The Gates

Monday, September 4, 2006

The Wall Street Journal

By Roland Rudd

 

 

(Mr. Rudd is the chairman of Business for New Europe)

 

 

LONDON -- Some members of the British media are up to their usual tricks. The prospect of further immigration to the U.K. once Bulgaria and Romania enter the European Union, as soon as next year, has prompted the customary scare mongering. Headlines about crime, corruption and drugs linked to immigrants have abounded in some of the U.K.'s more vociferous media titles.

 

These doomsday scenarios have of course been heard before. Ahead of the last enlargement in 2004, similar spook stories appeared. Particular venom was reserved for the Roma community. Headlines such as "Riot Fury Gypsies Head Here" reflected a surge of loud and bleak warnings about the impending "invasion." At the same time, the "Polish plumber" was depicted as a menace to Britons' jobs -- although this threat has certainly never achieved the political resonance here as it has across the Channel in France.

 

In the end, none of these dire warnings has actually materialized. The 2004 enlargement was not only one of the greatest achievements of the EU, marking the reconciliation between Eastern and Western Europe. It was also an unmitigated triumph for the U.K. economy. It has boosted economic growth and productivity, with immigrants fulfilling crucial roles in the British labor market. It is not only the Polish plumber who has become part of the fabric of British life. From hospitality and health care to construction and catering, their contribution has been immense. Rather than creating unemployment, these workers seem to be taking jobs locals no longer want to do. True, many more East Europeans came to the U.K. than the government had predicted. But this was not a trigger for economic doom -- even if it produced red faces for some at Whitehall.

 

The people who have come to the U.K. are typically hard workers and more than 80% of them are under 35. Contrary to the ugly caricature of the welfare-consuming immigrant, only 1.3% of the new migrants applied for unemployment benefits. Actually, many of them are working in the public sector, thus strengthening the National Health Service and other public services.

 

It is, though, disingenuous to solely concentrate on the benefits of migration without recognizing that there also costs. The influx of Poles to the U.K. in the last two years is the largest immigration of a national grouping in our nation's history. This has of course significant implications for the country's stretched public services, such as schools, hospitals and transport. Yet on many occasions the immigration debate seems to overemphasize the drawbacks and overlook the advantages.

 

The evidence that the East European influx has acted as a catalyst for economic growth is strong. The accounting firm Grant Thornton recently estimated that their arrival has boosted economic growth by as much as 1% in 2005 and will probably do so again this year, thereby allowing Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to meet his growth forecasts. Earlier this year, the "Item Club," an economic forecasting group sponsored by Ernst & Young, concluded that the migration had "proved remarkably positive for the economy, keeping interest rates 0.5% lower than they would otherwise have been."

 

It is not only the U.K. that has been rewarded for embracing the spirit of enlargement. Sweden and Ireland were the only other countries to immediately open their labor markets for the new EU members, and their economies have benefited, too. The effect was most dramatic in Ireland, where as many as 85,000 workers have come to the country just in the year after enlargement. This has allowed the "Celtic tiger" to continue its high growth rate -- expected this year to reach 4.75%, or double the euro-zone average.

 

Other EU members are slowly recognizing the economic benefits of immigration. A further five have lifted restrictions on the 2004 accession countries; Italy last month became the latest to do so. The Catalan State and Savings Banks and the Autonomous University of Barcelona released a study last week saying that the influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe and Africa to Spain has helped the Spanish economy to grow by 2.6% on average over the last 10 years. Without large-scale immigration, per capita GDP would have actually fallen, according to the report.

 

If any group should be at the forefront of championing enlargement and immigration, it is the business community. It is no accident that London, the leading financial center in the world, has a work force comprising 189 nationalities. Business should stay faithful to the EU vision, first enunciated in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, of the free movement of workers. It is worth remembering that this is a two-way street. There are approximately 3,000 Britons in both the Czech Republic and Hungry, and the numbers are rising.

 

The British government should continue its open-door policy when Bulgaria and Romania enter the EU. Such a policy is not only right for the U.K. It also makes sense for the rest of Europe. The prospect of further migration from Eastern Europe, which is likely to fuel economic growth, is a cause for celebration, not cowardice.