Romania’s joining NATO: a myth

"Hoping we will join the NATO helps the ordinary people overcome difficult moments". Of Constantinescu’s many statements I purposely chose the aforementioned sentence, to point out one thing without which everything happening these days remains confusing. Up to one point, Constantinescu’s visit in USA seemed extremely successful. Due to a well-planned media campaign, the visit had the aura of a historic moment for our national destiny. The head of the Romanian state had been given "the visa" for a speech in the American Congress, had been treated by the White House and the Oval Office extremely attentively. Our mind confused by the hypocrite enthusiasm of the official opinion makers seemed to get tired. Everything happening across the Atlantic since Constantinescu got there seemed astounding. If we didn’t have, as journalists, to pay more attention to small details which somebody else don’t have time to notice them, we wouldn’t have noted the sentence in the beginning. And as the distance has become bigger, we will resume it: "Hoping we will join the NATO helps the ordinary people overcome difficult moments".
If we were determined to make virtual history, the aforementioned sentence would probably be a handbook chapter. A chapter entitled something like this: "Romania’s joining the Western civilisation: a myth". In the ’97-’98, a people generally fated to failure, had succeeded, due to the concern of a providential political class, to bewilder expectations. In only two years since the old regime had fallen, Romania succeeded in taking its fate in its own hands. Romanians, although didn’t live as they would have wished, succeeded in overcoming a great handicap. Their fate, already happy, though frustrating, didn’t depended but on a single thing: joining NATO. An organization that was said, at that time, it was the last peak you could possibly reach. The president at that time succeeded in giving orally the happiest expression to that state of things. "Romania want but only one thing: to join NATO. In the name of this ideal, Romanians are ready to sacrifice even their smallest joys". The story ends here because, in the mean time, history had its fling in Romania. The Finance Minister refused the most important thing he could have ever concluded with an American company, for budget poverty reasons, for the same reason significant public expenses cuts were expected, privatization and restructuring were on the same level the former communist regime had left on, the governmental coalition was more divided as ever, waiting for a small signal to break up and the anti-reform, nostalgic and frustrated left-wing was waiting quietly. Meanwhile, the president still believed that "hoping we will join the NATO helps the ordinary people overcome difficult moments".