I don"t know if Jean-Pierre Vigroux has learned to speak Romanian in the twenty years since he found Romania and began living here, as a representative of consulting firm "Coopers & Lybrand", but one thing is certain he is not making accurate judgments when it comes to Romania.

Now working for "Mazars" - another consulting firm, which drew up a study for the European Commission intended to evaluate the efficiency of the European directive on the obligation of companies listed on the regulated stock exchange to provide information in a transparent manner - , Mr. Vigroux says: "I do not think that Romania can develop a major stock market in the near future, because it is a matter of mentality. Romanian investors prefer speculating on tangible items, like land or buildings".

Present at the time the statement was made, our reporter said that Mr. Vigroux took the opportunity to acknowledge his limited competence when it comes to the stock market. The problem is however, that his statements were not made in his own living room, and as a result, they were published by the media, which left out the second part of his statement, which caused outraged investors to report them to us: "He called us hicks!".

So, with all due respect to a person we"ve known for a long time, it needs to be said that the fashion of foreign consultants blaming "Romanian mentality" as cause for our resistance to change, has been dead and gone for at least ten years.

I haven"t heard any mention of this "Romanian mentality" since the end of the millennium.

We are now talking about Băsescu and Boc, about politically affiliated businesses, greed and corruption, thievery - whether it"s legally recognized or not, about crooked laws.

So, our mentality has become completely westernized.

Matching the French mentality completely.

The statement that somehow Romania