News Commentaries

Horsemeat scandal:

Focus switches to Romania

 

 

Comment:

That the source of this horsemeat scandal has been traced to Romania has not come to many of us as a surprise at all, if anything, it may be just the tip of an unfolding iceberg. This crisis brings to the fore many of the deficiencies that can be traced to the original design of the workings of the European Union. How can a deficient country like Romania have equal vote, privileges and immunities with say Germany, France or Britain? In a mad rush to build and enlarge a European empire, over-simplistic assumptions were made which will merely stoke up problems for the future - no wonder an American writer, two years ago, articulated his doubt by dubbing it ‘The voluntary empire’. 

In Paris it is estimated that about 80% of street crimes are committed by Romanians, in London lots of cash-point thefts have involved Romanians, Sham charities based in Romania have been identified as massive tax avoidance and money laundering vehicles and yet the Romanian government often fail to even acknowledge these malaise; where they do, they fail to take decisive action. No wonder the then president Sarkozy was so incensed that he unilaterally embarked on mass deportation of Romanian gypsies and in London the metropolitan police had to enlist their Romanian counterparts during the Olympics to help them combat the growing menace of Romanian criminal gangs here.

In December 2010 the French interior minister Brice Hortefeux and her German counterpart Thomas de Maiziere said in a letter to the European Commission: 'In our opinion it is still premature to envisage the entry into the Schengen zone in March 2011.' They urged the EU to postpone any discussion of Schengen entry for Romania and Bulgaria until they strengthen the ability of the judiciary and public administration to combat abuses.
'Deficiencies ... would have serious consequences for the internal security of the European union and each member state,' the ministers wrote.

In December 2011 president Sarkozy fed up with all these dillydallying said that Germany and France should take the grip and run Europe, this of course should include Britain as the three biggest countries with the most advanced civic structures in Europe; Italy may well qualify as the 4^th, but no more, as too many captains will inevitably derail the vessel - the rest must conform by the rules set by the leadership. Anything short of clear and decisive leadership will be unsustainable in the long run.  The lesson from this horsemeat fraud hatched up in a country where anything goes is the ease with which all forms of contaminated conduct can spread and, if unchecked, could ultimately undermine our hard-earned ways of life.  Hope the leaders of Europe take a decisive action.