New book by Daniel Daianu was presented in Chisinau

A new book, “Who we are in the Union. Romania’s modernization wager” written by Daniel Dsianu was presented Thursday, October 5 in Chisinau, at the Association for Foreign Policy. The book which will appear in the near future on the shelves of the capital’s book-stores is the second volume of the author, which gathers articles that appeared in the “Jurnalul Naţional” and “Ziarul Financiar” newspapers in January 2004 – April 2006 period. The subject of the compilation is the same: Romanian integration in the economical and political area of the European Union, the emphasis being put on the thesis that “the big question is not whether we do enter, but what will we be in the Union”. According to the author the gravitation force of the EU will deeply affect the institutional structure of the Romanian society and the general performances will ameliorate in a spectacular manner in circa 5-10 years, a fact which brings hopes and catalyzes energies. A more nuanced response emphasizes, though, the variety of conditions and performances inside the EU, the fact that there’s no predetermined way towards accomplishment, that the Union itself is confronting major difficulties; in other words, it mainly depends on the local policy to identify the path for the country’s modernization. As the author asserts, Romania will not lose its identity in this great economical and political area, because in the EU there are both more and less rich countries, the range of per-capita income being surprisingly wide. Thus, in some new-entered countries, per capita income is about one third of the EU medium. Central European countries with emergent economies have growing medium rates of their GDP of above 5%, Scandinavian countries and Spain – of about 3 %, France and Germany have growing rates under 1.5% per year. At the same time, in Italy the growing registered over the last years is quasi-null. Also, there are countries in the EU with budgetary discipline and others which do not respect the Pact of Financial Stability etc. The author also mentions that Romania has registered some macroeconomic achievements lately, fact that brought it more closely to EU. However, there are major structural weaknesses, rooted in the poor development level (compared with European countries) and in a hard post communist development. “We have 8-10-fold lower wages compared with EU, but also a poorer productivity. A significant part of the population lives in the rural regions and has inconsistent contributions to the public budget. The wages received in Romania and the lack of jobs in the rural regions lead to a massive migration. The incomes of the public budget constitute 30% of the GDP, much lower than the EU average of 40%, Daianu mentions. The author declared, at the launching of his book in Chisinau that Moldovan readers can find in the book concerns regarding the integration in the EU of those living on the other side of Prut river. According to him “the message is neither optimistic, nor pessimistic, and Moldovans could find in this book the answers they need about the EU”. The author is a teacher at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies from Bucharest, chairman of the Supervision Council of the Romanian Commercial Bank, ex-minister of Finance during 1997-98, and previously chief-economist of the National Bank of Romania. He is a member of the editorial staff of many foreign publications, chairman of the Romanian Economic Society (SOREC), correspondent member of the Romanian Academy and Member of the American Economic Association (AEA) etc.