Uniting democratic democratic forces crucial in transition

Visiting Romanian President Ion Iliescu was chosen to lead his country during the transition from a totalitarian communist system to democracy and market-oriented economy in 1989. The Jakarta Post's Kanis Dursin interviewed the President on Tuesday focusing on that transition and his country's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) as well as bilateral ties with Indonesia. The following are excerpts:

How did Romania manage to get through the transition from totalitarianism to democracy and market-oriented economy?

Socialism was considered the solution to big social problems after World War II as it promised democracy based on people's support and aspirations and an efficient economy based on common, national interests, not on individual interests.

It proved to be a failure. There was no democracy. State party monopoly left no room for freedom of expression and free choice for the people. On the economic front it proved to be inefficient. So, the socialist system collapsed.

But of course, capitalism is not the answer to all of these questions because a capitalist market economy also proves to generate social polarization with the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority group, and poverty for the great majority.

From this point of few, there should be something new ... like social market economy, that is the market economy of a capitalist system, with all of its virtues, but with the intervention of the state to moderate the consequences of the market capitalist economy and social politics to diminish the big gap between the rich and the poor.

Unfortunately, we don't have such a mechanism on the global scale. The world is confronted with globalization, but we don't have an instrument on a global scale to moderate such consequences and limit the gap between the rich and the poor. The big gap can become the source of instability and conflicts on a global scale.

Unlike former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, Romania was able to pass through the transition period with its territory intact. Why?

Yugoslavia was a federal state composed of six republics with some ethnic differences. Social gaps among these republics were deepening. In fact, economic and social gaps between the northern and southern republics generated tension among those republics that led to the call for the dismantling of the federation. It was the same with the Soviet Union.

Romania was a national state. It had its own long history of separate existence of several provinces under foreign domination. These historical provinces united themselves into the national state of Romania. So, there was no reason for any separation inside a national state that had a historical goal to unite into a united state. So, it was quite different.

What preparations did you make or are making to join NATO and EU?

For NATO, it is already done and this spring we shall become a full member of NATO. We had 10 years of experimenting in the partnership for peace which helped our army become compatible with NATO standards.

For EU, it is a much more complicated process of compatibility and competitiveness in order to be able to integrate our economy into the European Union. We also have ten years of experience being a candidate country, and we are now negotiating to become a permanent member.

Much effort has gone into changing our legislation, administration and economic structure to make them compatible with EU standards.

We hope that in the process of and after the integration, we have better conditions to develop our country and our economy in order to reduce the gap that separates us.

We are regarding our integration into the EU as a chance to better use our potential, our materials and natural resources, to raise our economy and diminish the gap between our country and developed (Western European) countries.

What advice would give to Indonesian leaders during their own transition period? From our experience, we can say only two things, first, consolidating democratic organizations in the society and giving more possibility to people to use more of their potential and creativity.

Secondly, the economy remains the most important factor of our social life. So, strive to improve the structure of the economy, make it more efficient and use natural resources.

How can bilateral relations be improved? Boosting bilateral ties is the main goal of our visits and discussions in Bucharest and Jakarta. Our political relations are very good and diplomatic ties are going well and in international bodies we are cooperating.

However, economic relations are still modest. Our bilateral trade relations stand at around US$50 million only, which is very moderate. I think we are in a better condition now. Both countries have passed through difficult periods.

We hope to find new ways and new sectors of common activities to expand trade and develop new partnership in different economic sectors.