Moment Of Truth; 'The Captain' takes charge. Can he still get a faltering Romania into the EU?(Traian Basescu)

Byline: Andrei Postelnicu and Michael Meyer

The new year was seconds away in Bucharest's Universitatii Square, where young people died fighting communism in 1989. A short, bald man jumped on stage. "Happy New Year, Romania. Happy New Year, Bucharest!" he shouted to an ecstatic crowd. Taking a swig from a large champagne bottle, he then sprayed the public like the victorious driver of a Grand Prix race. Elected president just days before, Traian Basescu spared his countrymen the officious speech they'd come to expect from their leaders every December 31. Instead, the former sea captain had a drink with them.

Gestures like this mark Basescu, 54, as a breed apart, a new generation Romanian leader, ready to take on the challenges of a new era. And he'd better be, for his country is in serious trouble. Scheduled to join the European Union in 2007--with the signing of the official accession treaty just a few weeks away--Romania is by no means ready. If graded today, it would fail almost every objective test of admission. The economy is a mess. Standards of justice and human rights are abysmal. Corruption is rampant. Romania supposedly arose in 1989 to slough off communist dictatorship. In fact, the celebrated revolution was more a crypto-coup that paved the way for nearly 15 years of rule by the communist apparatchiks and secret police who engineered it, led by the retiring President Ion Iliescu. Romanians today call it their "stolen revolution," in testimony to the stuck-in-the-sand morass they find themselves in, so in contrast to their post-Soviet neighbors. No wonder Eurocrats in Brussels are openly questioning whether Romania can meet its deadline--or should have its EU admission pushed back a year.

It's up to Basescu to change all that--to give Romania its revolution back and set it firmly on a path toward Europe. If he exudes the aura of a no-nonsense man-in-a-hurry, it's because he is. In Washington last week, Basescu hit it off with George W. Bush. Like the U.S. president, Basescu is nothing if not bold. As the hugely popular mayor of Bucharest, he wasted little time in cleaning up the capital's potholed and littered streets--and trying to clean up city government. Thwarted in that, he at the last minute entered December's presidential race, eking out a stunning victory over the stiff and haughty Adrian Nastase, the incumbent prime minister. Largely because of their desire for change, Romanians chose his unpolished charisma and often shocking frankness over the well-oiled political machine of the opposing Social Democrats. With Basescu, Romania has its first fully non-communist government since World War II.

On its face, Romania's future looks good. The economy has grown by more than 5 percent every year since 2001. The country is a member of NATO and EU membership is nigh. Beneath the surface, the country is a disaster waiting to happen. Corruption and burdensome bureaucracy has driven roughly half the economy underground, according to experts, reflecting a widespread view that it's better to avoid a system that can be abused or bought than to do business legitimately. "It is time for a new way of doing politics in Romania," Basescu said after his election. His promise to voters: lower taxes, honest government and painful economic reforms--demanded by Europe but which no previous administration has been willing to undertake.

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