The issue Tuesday of the European Commission Report announcing that Romania and Bulgaria will make the 1 January 2006 accession date was an opportunity for both president Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu to show the different levels of political instinct they own.
Tariceanu was hailing the move as if Romania already showed political and economic development on a pair with Germany. Romaniaâs future after January 1st looked brighter to him than communism did to Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Whoever listened to Tariceanu might have whished nothing else but go to sleep and wake up the next day on January 1st already, to reap the benefits of the integration: the holes in the public roads gone; the toilets in schools - state of the art; the villages with paved and brightly lit roads; the postman delivering salaries and pensions ten times their current values.
Basescu, for his part, kept the buckets of cold water ready to cool down any unwarranted enthusiasm. In stark contrast to Tariceanu, he warned that the mere EU membership did not bring wealth, but only the hard work.
With his long-proven ability to gage the mentality of the Romanian people, Basescu scored again. He knows Romanians are easy to set on fire and easy to cool down.
He also knows that the over inflated expectations they hold for instant economic prosperity brought about by the EU membership will be quickly disproved by the reality on the ground.
Hence, as life would become harder and not easier to live, Romaniansâ high enthusiasm would melt down leaving room to deep disappointment.
And they will target then the current government, making it the source of all their discontent.
Not Basescu, though. He safely set himself aside as the one calling the cautionary calls.
For more than a year Basescu tried to distance himself from the
