Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

DRAGOº PETRESCUFurthermore, Ceauºescu’s policy of reducing the country’s externaldebt, which in late 1981 amounted to $ 10.2 billion, resulted in a drasticreduction of imports. Consequently, beginning in 1981-1982, Romania, asa net importer of food from the West, entered a period of chronic shortagesof foodstuff and other basic items such as soap, toothpaste and detergent.59 The economy was seriously affected, since the import of machinesand production equipment from the West was also reduced drastically.This added more problems to the Romanian economy in the conditions ofan increasing complexity of the world economy. Therefore, from the late1970s, Romania exported mainly goods with a small added value. Moreover,the Romanian economy was based on large state enterprises andtherefore was less flexible and capable of responding to internationalcompetition. In 1989, Romanian small and medium size enterprises (withless than 500 employees) contributed only 6% to the total industrial productionand employed only 4% of the total workforce. 60The economic crisis led to a decline in the standard of living of thepopulation “unmatched since the famine of the postwar period.” 61 In February1982, after a sustained campaign in mass media, the regime introducednew prices for foodstuffs. According to the official figures, prices roseby an average of 35%. 62 Although the private electricity consumption representedonly 7.0% of the total consumption, during the 1980s, the populationhad to bear the burden of the energy crisis. As a consequence, the energycrisis provoked major difficulties in central heating during wintertime,with disastrous consequences for the population. In the late 1980s, for themajor part of the Romanian population the conditions of life were at thelowest possible level among the countries of “real socialism.”Therefore, after the fall of the communist regime in December 1989,Romania entered the process of economic transformation with a serioushandicap. In its communiqué of 22 December 1989, the newly-establishedNational Salvation Front promised “to restructure the whole nationaleconomy, in accordance with the criteria of profitability and efficiency, toeliminate the administrative, bureaucratic methods of centralized economicmanagement and to promote free initiative and competence in themanagement of all economic sectors.” 63 However, economic transformationwas slow. Apart from the initial conditions, the changes initiated by thepost-communist governments did not accelerate economic recovery after thecollapse of the centrally-planned economy.To support my argument, I provide a comparison between the postcommunisteconomic reform strategies adopted by Romania and Poland,a country comparable to Romania in terms of size and population. 64In order to discuss Romania’s strategy of economic transformation, it isinstructive to consider the ten measures on which the Polish model of eco-288