Could you briefly tell us, when did the Businessmen's Association of Romania start and what was the main reason for its creation?
It started in 1994 and it was the result of two business people involved in industry, trading and media. The main purpose was to try to reconsider the capacity and quality of the Romanian businessman. In Romania, businessmen were not well accepted, because, before 1990, business and businessmen were not recognized and the relation between business-people and business in general was regarded as something bad, not as something positive. At that time, "positive" was somebody that was working, creating or doing something else, but not business. That is one of the reasons why there was a kind of campaign against the business community - not an official one, but a social one. Between 1990-1994, unfortunately, there were a few businesspeople that were not really businesspeople, but crooks, like everywhere. In 1990, due to the vacuum of power, everybody tried to take a piece of something and Romania started to distribute the fortune existing in 1990. This was a very big mistake. Instead of trying to build new sectors and new activities, everybody started to split what already existed. Because of these so-called paper businessmen and of what I told you before, there was not a good perception of the business community. The idea was that we had to build up a new and real image of the businessman and to promote the interest of the Romanian capital. These are, even today, the two main targets of our association - to obtain a respectable category and to promote the interests of the Romanian capital.
What are the necessary conditions that have to be fulfilled in order to be a member of the Businessmen's Association of Romania and what sectors are represented therein?
We already have 42 members but we are expecting 3 new ones in February. We have two kinds of conditions for our members:
a material one, i.e.: a down payment of US$ 5,000 in order to try - from the very beginning- to give access to the people who are really healthy from the financial point of view.
the second one, which is basically the main one, is that each member must have a recommendation from two other members, as a moral guarantee from these two for the new members. We also have a right of veto for all the members against any new-comers. There could be the case that anyone would come and pay the US$ 5,000, meaning that he has the money but he is not very honest. Even when he has the two recommendations, meaning that he is morally ok, if one of our members has something against him and has the right arguments, he has the right to Veto him. Every member has the right to 3 Vetoes in his life.
You are one of the few business associations that exist in Romania.
Ours is the only professional one. All the others are employers' associations. They are members of industry, like in France. We are not industrialists. We are professionals who are members as individuals and not as companies.
We heard that the Paunescu brothers are trying to set up a similar organization as yours.
There are 8 organizations but all of them are employer associations, meaning that they represent the interests of the shareholders. They are mixed because they mix the state as a shareholder with the private shareholder. If your state is as a shareholder, when you have to have a discussion with the Government -the employer- and the labor union, the state has a double quality, of state and of share-holder, so there are not 3 parts any more, but 2 parts. Paunescu and the others are the representatives of the economic sectors according to the rules, because in Geneva and in the United States, the organization of industrialists is organized by sectors. In our case, we are only individuals- main shareholders that have nothing to do with what the others are doing. The difference is that the employers must be organized by what they are doing.
Do you work hand in hand with associations like the Foreign Investors Council or do you rather do things on your own, deal with the Government for your own things or do you combine all these activities?
To be very frank, until now, there has not been a very good communication between the others and us. In a way, there is a limit between the demagogy to appear on TV or on newspapers and, at the same time, trying to fight for the interests of your people. For instance, the Foreign Investors Council has other interests, like promoting and protecting the interests of the capital they bring to Romania. I hope that today they will succeed in putting all the employers under only one association in Romania.
All of your members are Romanian. Are international companies or multinational ones that have interests in Romanian companies allowed to be members of your association or do you only accept Romanians?
According to an article of the Association, a person that wants to become a member must have the Romanian citizenship.
In which way do you think the last changes that have taken place in the country and the general existing election climate will affect the business environment of the country this year?
I will compare the year 2000 with 1990, because both these years represent a big change for Romania. We have to look at the elections from two different points of view: from the point of view of the people who are now in power - they will try to take advantage of the last few months in all the directions, pushing to it quickly- and from the point of view of the people who are waiting to take over the power - they will try to stop the first ones from doing what they want, because they will want to do it after they have taken over the power. So there are going to be 2 forces: one that is very interested to act quickly and the other one that is interested to do it very slowly or not to do it at all. That is why, from the business point of view, it will be a year with great opportunities. | How do you see this temporary Government? Do you think they are really going to be successful in implementing and maintaining those changes before the elections? Do you think the changes implemented now will remain after the elections?
The question is if the present Prime Minister, Mugur Isarescu and his Government will succeed in changing the political situation in favor of the present power, because they are trying very hard to push them to win. My opinion is that there is not enough time. Had this been done 3-4 months before, it would have been a very good move. After the implementation, it will take other 6 months to have a reaction and to get to the pocket of the citizens. When you consider the measures that have to be implemented first, to be applied and then to get into the citizen's pocket, this process is too long, considering the 3 months left.
Everybody is complaining about the slowness of the implementation of crash measures for the economy. Do you agree with it? How do you think it could be accelerated and what are the key things that should be tackled by the Government?
The political fights were and still are transferred into the economic sector. The economy has some very old and clear rules and, if they are not abode, the economy does not work. Politics has no rules. This is also the key and the reason for what happened in the past. This reason was, still is and will be in the future - if no change appears- the very brutal and strong involvement of politics in economy. This is the only and main reason for the slowness of changes.
What is your opinion about the talks between the European Union and Romania?
If you want my opinion, this has nothing to do with Romania. It is only the international situation that gives us a very big opportunity and we just have to take the chance and use it. Now we are in the process of starting negotiations with the European Union. Mrs. Albright receives our Minister of Foreign Affairs. President Clinton's assistant visited Mr. Iliescu for a few hours, not because of Romania, but because of the political situation in the world and the conflict of interests between Europe and the United States. We are the result of what happened and not the reason of what is happening.
Q.11 How are you planning to take advantage of this situation?
A.11 We try to discuss with the leaders of all parties. It is more difficult to have a discussion with Mr.Diaconescu's party, because they are very old and do not understand what is modern and what they have to do. With the Businessmen's Association, after 9 years, we succeeded in bringing together all the social democrat parties. We do our best to convince them that, if, for Romania, a simple change is good for everybody, it will be better.
Q.12 What are the priorities on which the Government needs to focus for the business to work properly and to attract other investments to Romania's economy?
They must have two priorities. One is to start the main engine of economy, i.e.: the construction infrastructure. That is what is used to start any economy in the world. This means to build railways, highways and so on, because, if you build, you give the people a place to work, you produce the materials to build with, you allow tourism to develop, etc. Infrastructures and constructions are the first sectors to start with in such a situation as ours. The second priority is to protect the people that are by nature at a disadvantage, such as blind people or those who have a handicap. Our problem is that we try to start with more than two priorities without having the necessary money for any of them. They split in ten without any results or effects and the people do not see any success. For the two fields that I mentioned before the money would come immediately, because there is money, both abroad and in Romania. The problem is that the funds should be spent in an efficient way. To continue with the example of construction, if you build a house, this is a sure collateral investment.
Although Romania has such a strategic geographic position, it does not move as fast as its neighbors. What is wrong?
There are two issues. The first one is very simple - we do not spend money in our image. That is why, when you watch international TV, you hear what they say, because they are being commercial about it. They want to present the Romanian children in the street and the criminals, because the viewers pay to see interesting things. If we do not pay to show the good parts, the media will never be efficient in showing good things. To be efficient, the media has to show only the negative events. The Government has to spend money for the image. It is, in fact, one of its main obligations. I think US$ 10 million would be enough to create a normal image.
However, the main reason not to do anything is the existing mentality, which also has two parts. There are the 50 years of communism - receiving money without working, no value system and all its bad aspects. If we go "back in time" 1000 years ago, when Romania was situated between the Ottomans and Europe, everybody was going and coming back and every time Romania was supposed to survive. Because of this situation, I think that, from one generation to another, we have succeeded in gaining some characteristics that are not very good for our people- obedience, for example. Obedience, together with the lack of living conditions make you be very rude and you only take care of what you want, without thinking of your neighbor. You just do not have enough to think at others. When you have enough you can give something to the others, but when you do not have enough, you take care of what you have, being careful that the others do not take some- thing from what you have. I think that hundreds of years like these have put these characteristics into our genes.
Do you have a message you would like to transmit to our readers?
They have to understand that, if in the next century, they do not share, at their free will, a small part of what they own with the rest of the world, they will be in great danger |
THE BUSINESSMEN ASSOCIATION 