Romanian Has An Image Problem Among EU States – European Commissioner

Asked how Romania is seen in Brussels, in the newly arisen context, brought about by the issue of Romanians in Italy, the recommendation on the budget deficit and the mechanism for monitoring and cooperation in justice, Orban said: "These are absolutely normal things, fitting within a logic of relations between member states and the European Commission."

Referring to the EC recommendation on what Romania should do regarding the convergence program Orban said "this is a new procedure, recently introduced, based on which the European Commission can formulate recommendations for member states regarding the policies they should apply not only to fit within the three percent deficit, but also for the quality of economic policies."

Orban said the number of Treaty violation procedures initiated against Romania is relatively low, including in comparison with the other new member states.

"This indicates not only that community legislation fitted well with Romanian legislation, but also that it is applied. This is encouraging. Surely certain issues remain," Orban said. In this context he mentioned “an image problem existing not as much on a community level as among the member states.”

"A problem involving the difficulties that some of the Romanians found in member states have created in those countries – and there are many such member states. This is a serious problem, an image problem, but like any other image problem it might have a certain impact on some of the political decisions made by member states," Orban said.

He added that he does not mean Italy alone. "There is an image problem in many member states. I have recently visited some of the northern states and, beyond interviews regarding multilingualism and various European affairs, I have often been asked about the Romanians begging in various European capitals," he said.