While the country joined the EU in 2007, the rewards from being part of the bloc have not been fully realized in the eyes of some Romanians, with political corruption and incompetence continuing and inequality getting worse.
‘Shaky’ ground
EU membership remains popular, but people’s expectations that it would solve the country’s problems were too high and many feel let down. European leaders in Brussels and elsewhere knew Romania had a long way to go to tackle corruption and enforce the democratic standards that the bloc expected. But they wanted to encourage the reformists in Bucharest and prevent the country from slipping back under the influence of Moscow.
“We fooled ourselves,” said Popescu-Zamfir, who, along with her colleagues, has spent recent years sounding the alarm that support for Western-oriented foreign policy in Romania was on “shaky” ground and could no longer rely on “a significant majority.”
Domestic politics hasn’t changed much, either. The National Salvation Front, which took power after 1989, went on to spawn the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which ever since has been Romania’s dominant political force. Many in the country have noted that it was the PSD that appointed the majority of the members of Romania’s Constitutional Court.
Back in Mihail Kogălniceanu, the residents are largely unimpressed by their country’s political drama.
On the main road, a car parts store is decorated for Christmas with a string of purple lights, winking on and off in the damp, gray afternoon. Inside, Florian Emil, 56, sits at his desk while his 88-year-old mother, Elena Mitrofar, occupies a chair to the side.
