In the speeches of the Western chanceries as in those of the majority of mass media on Central and Eastern Europe, which is experiencing such rapid changes, Rumania occupies a position aside. A something made of spells, of embarrassed silences, of a solidarity strongly combined with paternalism and sharp and "final" decisions, both on questions concerning human rights and the rights of the minority.

A "cocktail" that ill hides the skepticism if not altogether the refusal on the part of the "European emirs" (rulers and citizens) to give the Rumanian issue a fully European value. To their "justification" we can only say that beyond formal appearances, their behaviour does not differ much from that of the other "ex-socialist" countries.

We, on the other hand, think that, when speaking about the "Rumanian issue" it is necessary to avoid hiding, and on the contrary bear in mind several factors:

- in resuming contacts with democracy, Rumania rediscovers the richness of it but also the difficulties, one of them, slowness, is not a minor one.

- it is once again faced with an ethnical issue which, during the 45 years of the regime, was completely set aside in the name of the "real-socialist" dogma, and exasperated by means of a series of "administrative" and political measures (transfer of population, ethnical privileges,...).

- it rediscovers Europe, its place within Europe, but in a radically changed Europe, which is experiencing a constant process of transformation.

In contrast with a widely diffused opinion, therefore, let us not think that the starting point is catastrophic. Along with the (re)birth of small groups that profess and practice ethnical intolerance, and intolerance "tout court", there are many positive signs that point to the fact that the majority of Rumanians are aware of the need to regulate the question of the cohabitation between different ethnical communities in a harmonious and lasting manner. Now it is necessary to work so that this awareness will become conviction and action, and so that it will become so for an overwhelming majority of Rumanians.

Clearly this will be possible only if each citizen be put in the conditions of knowing the different argumentations and existing proposals, and then formulate an opinion.

Apart from being an indispensable condition for the achievement of peace, the future "internal "harmony and development of Rumania, the cohabitation of the different ethnic groups will also be determining in order to transform the old relations of reciprocal dependence of the countries of the region into concrete relations of inter-dependence.

The question is also an urgent one. With the speed with which things are moving, the last Saxons and Swabians of Rumania will have caught up, in a few years time, with unified Germany, at the same time subtracting to Rumania a strong natural advantage to establish and develop relations with the German world.

Enough with premises. The proposals over which I would like to start a major debate are three. The question is to organize the conjunction and articulation of three federal dimensions in the new institutional architecture of Rumania: a European federal dimension (Rumania member of the European Community or even better of the United States of Europe), a double internal federal dimension: a regional one (in the spirit with which it exists in Germany or in Canada, for example) and an community (under certain aspects in the same spirit in which it exists in Belgium).

European federalism: adhesion to the EEC.

The concrete goal, which could - and in our opinion should - become the main axis of the new Rumania's foreign policy, is that of its immediate reapproaching in view of its adhesion to the European Community. Community in the sense of a structure of political integration (and not only economic) of a federal type (not only in its goals).

From the point of view of the drafting of the new constitution, an article that explicitly provides for the delegation and the transfer of competences and national powers to supranational organs generally and to the European Community in particular could be included. Even better, another article could provide the constitutionality of the participation of Rumania to all the possible projects of a Constituent of the United States of Europe.

Federal Republic of Rumania

Apart from entering a European federalist perspective without ambiguities, we believe that the new Rumanian State should reorganize itself according to a federal model. It is not our intention to provide a list of projects already elaborated in the past, nor a list of already existing federal models. The systems in force in Canada, in the Federal Republic of Germany, in the United States, but also in Spain, each have qualities and defects. The problem, therefore, will be that of taking and combining the best parts of each one of them, taking into account the specific characteristics of Rumanians.

The aspect I would like to examine better concerns the role that federalism could have in a process of reconstruction, on solid bases, of democracy in Rumania. In particular, ensuring the basic principle according to which decisions must be taken at the lowest level, where they can be most effective, the federal organization of the State could safeguard the citizens and the local communities from a certain number of risks or authoritarian temptations which could come from too strong a centralized structure. Hence the need to establish one or more intermediate levels between the national decisional level and the local one, also on the basis of the dimensions of a country such as Rumania.

Regional federalism

In such manner - but at the present state these are only ideas destined to rouse a discussion and a meditation - we can imagine 6,7 or 8 federate regions and a federal district.

Four or five regions with a strong Rumanian majority (Moldavia, Dobrugea, Valachia, Oltenia...), two regions with a variated population, even if with a Rumanian majority (Transilvania and Banat) and a smaller region with Hungarian majority, the Country of Siculi, and lastly a federal district around Bucharest.

In each of these regions, territorially delimited, equipped with its own representative, government or executive institutions, citizens would be induced to exert a certain number of powers and competences together, regardless of their ethnical or linguistic belonging, more or less extended according to the sectors considered. In an absolutely non-exhaustive manner, they could concern matters such as urbanism, protection of the environment, agriculture, social and medical assistance, civil protection, industrial development, regional infrastructures...

EEC federalism

Along with these regional demands, we can imagine another level of delegation of powers. No longer from the central State toward territorial entities, the regions, but from the central State toward non-territorial entities, the ethnical, cultural and linguistic entities.

In this case the question would be that of resuming one of the aspects of the institutional architecture of today's Belgium, without, however, reproducing the bad mistake committed by the Belgian legislators, that of having wanted a correspondence between the EEC demand and a territorial dimension. In Belgium, in fact, the Flemish EEC institutions are the only ones competent to deal with the cultural problems in the Flemish part of the country, and the same is true for the French-speaking institutions. Apart from the region of Brussels, where both the communities and the small German-speaking area are competent, the territories of the regions and of the communities correspond.

Such a correspondence between regions and community condemns the minorities of a community to the impossibility of taking part in the definition and management of their own cultural policy, given that they are simply not acknowledged. Thus, several hundreds of thousands of French-speaking persons who live in the Flemish part of Belgium can democratically participate only to the cultural life...that is, the Flemish one. This is true, even if in much minor proportions, also for the Flemish minorities who live in the Walloon area.

The idea imagined for such cases is that of making the whole of the cultural communities coexist in Rumania independently from their geographical position. Apart from ensuring to each of the most well-known of them (Rumanian, Hungarian or German) the possibility of autonomously managing their own cultural policy, this system would also allow for a harmonious development of other communities, less known, such as the Serbian, Gypsy, Bulgarian, Ukrainian ones, for example.

The competence of these communities should be much broader in the sectors of culture and education. As far as other, let us say "personalizable", sectors are concerned, that is, that concern the life of the person taken individually (such as, for example, the sector of health), a division of competences between the regions and the communities could be devised. As far as the central State is concerned, its role should be restricted, for each of these sectors, to the definition of general principles and to the coordination. Lastly, a special court could be established, charged with arbitrating in cases of conflicts between the different institutions.

Transnational, transpartisan and non-violent, the Radical Party could represent one of the privileged places to elaborate and foster a programme of institutional and political improvement of the primary national richness of Rumania today: its variety and its ethnical, cultural and linguistic diversity.

This depends on you, on all Rumanian citizens.