Another Romanian soap opera

Once again, we have witnessed a poor-taste soap opera that turned Romania into the world’s laughing stock and caused major economic damage. The apparently meaningless scandal within a transporters association eventually resulted in very severe consequences worldwide.

A handful of members of the Romanian Association for International Road Transports (ARTRI), the authority controlling TIR licences granted to Romanian trucks, summoned a general meeting last week. A new leadership was elected, which immediately unleashed a lethal wave of embezzlement accusations against the old leadership.

What followed was a less orthodox confrontation between the two camps. Charges came flowing from both ends: embezzlement (hundreds of thousands of dollars), stolen documents and stamps. Between a curse and a death threat, one of the camps takes its complaint to the international authority on the matter – the International Road Union (IRU). This organisation, less acquainted with Romanian-styled scandals, reacted promptly, and suspended the validity of all TIR cards issued to Romanian trucks.

No one won in this scandal: neither the old or new ARTRI leadership, nor the regular transporters, who had to waste hours and days queued at the customs, although the dreaded TIR cards cost them a great deal of money.

Eventually, at the risk of interfering with the internal business of an employers union, the General Customs Direction head, Nini Sapunaru, cut the story short and took charge of the situation. After long hours of stormy talks with representatives from both ARTRI camps, he reached an agreement: within 30 days, elections will be held for a new management, under direct supervision of the Customs Direction to ensure complete lawfulness.

Once more, our ever-present Balkan mentality has shown up, the mentality that brings nothing but damage, both to our money and image as a nation. We have an outstanding talent of sabotaging general interest to suit our personal and momentary interest, a talent so rich it may eventually compromise general as well as personal interest.

On the other hand, many Romanians are unable to accept the idea that not everyone can be “the boss” and that the minority must obey the majority. Plus, no one can simply deal with a problem at home, and prefers to carry their troubles to higher authorities, without the slightest shade of regret that everyone would stand to suffer in the end.

Thus ended yet another scandal, in the all too familiar Romanian note. Such instances of dissent do not surprise anyone, aside from those who suffer directly – in this case, transport firms, which lost millions of dollars for failure to complete ongoing contracts.

A struggle for power for the sake of power and the immense resources (millions of dollars) managed by the ARTRI as a guarantee for the IRU-issued TIR cards, this was at stake in the scandal. It involved just a handful of people, but everyone suffered.