Two years ago, a decision like the one made on Thursday in Brussels would have been greeted with fireworks and champagne corks. After more than a decade of waiting, Romania will complete its integration into the EU by fully entering the Schengen area.
Yes, there will be a few buffer months until the land effects are fully realized, but the fact is accomplished and irreversible. And the checks that will still be carried out during this period at the border with Hungary and Bulgaria will be selective, not car by car.
Skeptics will say that we are entering when the Schengen area shows signs of complete breakdown with all sorts of temporary reintroductions of controls. It will only fall apart if the EU disappears. Yes, serious reforms are needed, but freedom of movement is essential to the essence of the European space.
This victory has come so late that, paraphrasing a famous saying, are we not happy because it has cost us too much soul? Yes, it took a long time, commensurate with our country's performance first and foremost. Because the politicians who represented us, as they represented us in these years, were elected by the people, as they understood better.
But we are here, and in the generalized neurosis, we should take a moment of joy, but also meditation, now, when very many Romanians, almost a majority, are willing to ridicule our membership in the EU.
Certainly, the EU is not perfect, there have been wrong policies or with too much acceleration, beyond the ability of many Europeans to metabolize, there have been downright monumental foolishness, the quality of current leaders is not the best, it is not exempt from corruption and certainly not from bureaucracy.
But, just as democracy is the worst political system except for all the others, to paraphrase Churchill, EU membership is also the worst thing, except for the nonexistence of the European Union.
For those with intact memory, a comparison between pre-EU Romania and Romania in the EU is not only possible but also very instructive.
Today's Romania cannot be compared to Romania from the early 2000s. We have surpassed Hungary and Greece in terms of average annual salary and we are approaching Poland, a standard in Eastern Europe. We have access to millions of euros in EU funds in almost all areas, whether we are talking about multiannual budgets or the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).
We can travel freely, work, study, live anywhere in Europe, and benefit worldwide from being EU citizens.
The big problem is that this progress has not been equally distributed throughout society, if not at least acceptably distributed.