In the consciousness of European masses the word Romania is often a conjoined twin with communism, Dracula or Ceausescu, and maybe a few other names belonging to sport or culture, but only for the ones in-the-know. A few days ago, a young Australian studying in London admitted he could not point Romania on the world’s map. A few Oxford students seemed somehow familiar with the notion, localizing it in Europe, but the light in their eyes only sparkled intelligently on hearing Transilvania, written with a Y in their acceptable ignorance.

Romania's image has got over the 0 kilometre, but only on the reverse. The British (and international) mass-media push, generally but not entirely, the minuses' treadle, because good news is not news. Until not long ago, the Romanian authorities did not join the eternal race for balancing the image of the country that, theoretically, they work for. Now and then, they wave a peace scarf from their stalls, or whisper a treat once in a presidential mandate. But they fail to defend or represent the Romanians from the Diaspora, who often goes to work with their glances sown to the ground while the person sitting next to them in the tube is reading a Right-handed newspaper literature about the Romanian criminals who came to be pour the last drop over the British immigration patience.

The British PR specialists rightly state that Romania needs a serious introspection, which should result in a clear, strong and exciting image. This week, a few of them tried to define Romania's image in a European consciousness context and to offer a few tips in the country's branding CPR out of the chocking provoked by lack of PR expertise or by the negative media avalanche offered to the British public as a substitute for circus, beside the elective bread, anticipated increasingly by the Tories.

The Foundation Idę for Romania has