The Romanian Government has the capacity to deal with this crisis, a crisis of its own making.  It has to be remembered that this problem is not the result of war, famine or other natural disaster – it is the result of a deliberate Government policy of neglect of its weakest citizens.  SEE PHOTO. This is a problem in other words, which politicians caused and which politicians can easily solve.  The closure of these concentration camps and the provision of smaller group homes and care centres with adequate and trained staff could in theory be done in three to four years, if resources were made available now. 

There is no shortage of skills, expertise and resources within Romania and foreign NGOs are eager to provide advice and assistance. A plan now exists - pressure from FOR has forced a change in government policy, and the proposed closure of notorious Negru Voda institution will form a template for reform of these terrible places. We have already commenced this closure project, and it is designed as a pilot project that will provide a solution to the entire national crisis.

The problem lies with the government’s lack of commitment to the process - the plan to roll out these closures nationally is very open-ended with no definite completion dates. At current rates of progress, this reform process will take more than 200 years!  Previous experience has taught us that political action is the only way in which to force the government of Romania to address this problem in a serious manner. This can be done in two ways:

 1. The EU Council of Ministers must address this issue at European level.  There must be a complete freeze EU funding to Romania until this problem is addressed. This action alone would solve the problem almost overnight.

 2. The European parliament needs to strongly condemn Romania’s lack of progress on this issue. Romania has passed the last hurdle to accession to the EU; a vote in the European parliament in April 2005 allows Romania full accession in January 2007. This issue comes up for review in November 2005, and we need everybody to put pressure on the Parliament to act on this ahead of the review.  We want the rollout of this reform process made a condition of further progress towards accession. Join in our One Million E-mails Campaign in support of this issue.
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