Winners and losers in the EU accession game

Negotiations with the European Union and eventual accession will change Romania economically, socially and politically. Changes will not only occur at the macroeconomic level but will also affect everyday life. Many companies will fold, while many others will appear on the market. Entire sectors of activity will disappear while others will thrive in the long run. Roads, harbours and airports will get a new look following massive investment programmes that will be carried out. Many farmers will stop working the land and change profession. The increase in education spending will create a much more specialised work force, which might leave the country, turning Romania into a nation made up of immigrant workers.

These are just a few of the possible scenarios that we could see, based on the impact studies conducted by analysts from the European Institute in Romania (IER). Impact studies are an instrument that assesses the impact of the introduction of community legislation and attempts to gauge the costs and benefits involved.

“Accession entails costs, but regardless of how high they might be, they are still much lower than benefits. Romania should have borne many of these costs by itself, but it now has the chance of undertaking them with a partner that provides money and advice,” Gabriela Dragan, head of IER’s Department for European Studies told Ziarul Financiar. She added there could be no exact evaluation of the costs and benefits that would accompany accession.

“Like a parent that finds it extremely hard, if not impossible, to tell how much raising and educating a child costs, but can tell how much private tuition or a pair of shoes costs, I cannot provide a single global figure that would sum up all the accession costs that would be accurate and realistic,” Dragan said. She explained that studies provide figures for integration costs in the field of transportation, which amount to 18.3bn euros for infrastructure alone throughout 2004-2007. Similarly, the implementation of the environmental acquis would cost 29.5bn euros.

Analysts say most of the costs come from the differences between Romania and the EU community model in terms of institutional structures, priorities and the content of economic policies. If seen from a sectoral standpoint, most of the costs are due to the low development level of specific sectors compared with the European Union. This will make the adoption of the acquis increase costs – some companies or sectors that are unable to financially sustain the implementation of the community legislation will disappear.

“The development of the economy will be uneven as far as economic sectors are concerned. There will always be relative winners and losers,” one of the surveys indicates. The sectors that stand to lose the most are those that used to benefit from state aids, granted to ward off bankruptcy, such as the mining sector. Sectors that find themselves having to invest in environmental protection, as well as the public utility sectors, could similarly be hit. The probable winners in the long run will be market services, which will maintain the development that began after 1990 and progress faster than the rest of the economy. Agriculture should similarly benefit, a process sustained by the efforts made by Romania with the EU’s financial support.
miruna.lebedencu@zf.ro