He's fed up and so are lots of people rallied behind him, because the problem is that bad. The Romanian road network is deficient and overburdened. Aside from commuters stuck in traffic, there's also lots of trucks. Most roads are undivided and overtaking is allowed. Safety culture among drivers is poor, deaths are high [1]. Sadly, road fatality rates in non-EU countries in the same region are even higher.
The EU is a critical source of funding for major infrastructure projects, especially for newer members who also have access to convergence funds. Road projects are expensive not only because of costs in design, land acquisition, and construction materials, but because they require large amounts of labor over several years. While it's often the same multinational consortia who bid on and win such construction projects, these firms aren't set up to do everything by themselves, and partner with local subcontractors for much of the work. The way work gets subcontracted makes this process vulnerable to corruption and graft. But sometimes it's the big consortia that get themselves into a problematic situation: just read up on Bechtel and Viaduct at Suplacu de Barcău.
EU transport and convergence funds might be a big help, but they do come with a few strings attached: they have to be used for projects that can be justified though a regional or EU-wide lens. On top of the slow pace of progress on the matter, Moldavia has an unfortunate geographic situation that puts it far away from the most important transit corridors -- the TEN-T corridors -- that EU desires to prioritize. In Romania's case, this means that connections towards Hungary and Bulgaria have so far made more progress than connections towards Ukraine and Moldova.
> Road projects are expensive not only because of costs in design, land acquisition, and construction materials, but because they require large amounts of labor over several years.
And most of all, corruption. I was talking to someone involved in a construction project (from donated / borrowed EU funds). EU eventually had to send someone to supervise because workers would sneak in it back at night and steal materials. Some were very creative as they might steal cement but replace it with something cheaper.
Basically it is really an uphill battle. Just handing over a bunch of money to countries with a lot of corruption, doesn't work at all
This was a problem with the "Big Dig" project in Boston as well. A truck would drive in with cement, get checked in, then drive right out again, either to someone else's project or in order to return and be checked in again.
It's not like everyone all the way to the top didn't know it was happening. The entire project was a feeding trough for everyone who worked in construction and knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy.
I'm not sure if the corruption has gotten better since the project or just more subtle now that it's no longer all concentrated on several tunnels under Boston. Probably the latter considering that the various departments of state government do not seem to have improved much.
This is Massachusetts. Corruption is deeply baked in. I always laugh when I hear people in California talk about "corruption". The scams out here are kindergarten level compared to the east coast.
> Just handing over a bunch of money to countries with a lot of corruption, doesn't work at all
This is hardly a new problem. Literally any first world aid programme has this exact issue, whether it be USAID, AUSAID, DFID. Maybe there's just reluctance to treat EU partners the same way they treat South American and South East Asian partners?
It doesn't get much better in countries with lower corruption. The difference is that in less corrupt countries after the stealing is done the project delivers something close to expectations. In more corrupt countries after the stealing is done there's not much left for delivering anything.
> Maybe there's just reluctance to treat EU partners the same way they treat South American and South East Asian partners?
I think that was the case. It was embarrassing for the local officials to have to admit to the corruption. They know it is there and they are usually the ones involved in it, it's just that brining it to light and making it obvious is "embarrassing".
Moldova was an eye-opener (in 2012) - crossed the border from Romania at Giurgiulești, and almost immediately found myself driving down a cobbled road with gas street lights, and horse-carts. They make Romania look extremely wealthy.
It’s understandable that the EU is prioritising corridor connections between member states and wealthy trading partners. I am sure Moldova will not be forgotten, but as long as they still have the last vestige of the USSR within their borders (Transnistria), it’ll be hard to extend them membership or the benefits of new infrastructure. Furthermore, extending east from Moldova into Ukraine is also challenging, as there is an awkward area of disputed territory around the border with frequent checkpoints, diversions, and razor wire fences. Oh, actually, that was seemingly resolved after my visit - but Transnistria remains.
Unless is a separate topic, I think there's a confusion here. When Moldavia is mentioned, they mean the historical region Moldavia, part of the Romania. We normally refer to that Moldova (that the parent is talking about) either as "Republic of Moldova", or Basarabia. Historically, there was one big Moldova, currently only about half of it is united with Romania.
I have a friend who visited it and came back with one of the funniest post-Cold War stories I know. It's representative enough of this stuff that I'm going to recount it, even though most of its value resides simply in being funny.
So my friend is a very nice and friendly guy, who travels all over the world. He speaks Romanian well, but not too much Russian. The border checkpoint, naturally, was manned only by a few friendly folks who spoke nothing but Russian.
He shows them his papers, and they manage to understand each other only to the extent that he explains he wants to visit Tiraspol, and that he's a tourist. All of this mostly in sign language.
So this guy apologizes, tells my friend to wait, and goes off through a door in the back. Almost an hour later, he returns with someone who speaks a little Romanian. My friends explains the whole I wanna visit Tiraspol, I'm a tourist thing all over again. More discussion and paper checking ensues.
Another hour later, the two guys leave again, and return with a third soldier. This time, someone who speaks excellent Romanian. The whole explanation gets repeated. They finally give him the visa, wish him good luck and safe journey -- and one of guys pats him on his shoulder and apologizes.
Sorry, man, he says, you look like a nice guy and I'm sure you really are a tourist. But you have to understand, when someone shows up at the border and claims they're a tourist, we usually find out he's definitely not a tourist.
Edit: every other event of his trip was equally funny, except it involved no public authorities :). From what I've heard, Tiraspol isn't too bad a city -- but do remember this is basically still a Soviet state. I'm sure it's very bad if you piss of the wrong person.
Yeah, that was my experience going in too - took about six hours at the border to get two cars through - and if it hadn’t been for my wife who speaks fluent Russian, it would’ve been no dice.
Tiraspol feels like many post-soviet cities, and reminded me of Volgograd - the only real difference is the ubiquitous and contemporary soviet imagery.
Oh, we did - had a box full of pot noodles, and various Union Jack branded tat - you’d be amazed at how far a touristy biro and tiny tin of biscuits will get you.
On the other hand, it sucks when you’ve spent six hours buttering up an entire border station, and then the shift changes, as happened when trying to get into Uzbekistan just after a bombing in Tashkent. Ended up having to sleep in a brothel in a Kazakh border town, as the border was truly closed, and after 30 hours of wakefulness we were ready to drop - and the nearest hotel was in Shymkent.
Yeah, it's an odd old place - it really is still a Soviet state - with secret police to match. We had a shadow in Tiraspol, shook them because we could, as taking them on a wild goose chase is almost sport, and... then found it rather hard to get out of the country, as a result - a sizeable bribe had to change hands.
Still, it's worth visiting, for a day or two, once.
There's a lot more to Transnistria. Russia wants it as a strategic point of access to Europe. There are roads purposely build for quick access with tanks (big, heavy, concrete roads, reinforced with rebar - your car usually makes a clunking sound as if you're on a train). So they support the region with preferential natural gas prices (sometimes the bill gets completely tagged to Republic of Moldova). At the time when URSS collapsed, and the split happened - most of the heavy industry was on the Transnistrean side (including weapons factories), so it was big loss for Republic of Moldova. The Army 14 of the URSS never left Transnistria, and Russia still refused to call them back. [ https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicarea_Armatei_a_14-a_%C3%... ]
It's a semi-lawless land, used sometimes as a hiding spot for criminals, assassins, etc. Gun trafficking is at home there. When on bike, I managed once to pass the border without being checked (and I didn't notice I didn't have my papers with me, I almost got stuck in there) - you're basically at the whims of the border patrols.
There are a few villages that belong administratively to Republic of Moldova (I visited Coșnița [coshnitza] with a friend, that is one such village) - this state of affair came with great cost of lives, and people there still remember the price they paid. Tensions sometimes get high - in 2012 a drunk guy was shot and killed by the border patrol, as he was traversing the bridge - people were literally picking up forks and scythes to avenge him [ http://www.ziare.com/europa/moldova/moldovean-impuscat-de-ru...]
Moldova, the Romanian region (not the Republic), isn't poor, or at least not all of it.
We've got Iași there, one of our biggest cities and an important economic center, home to thriving software companies actually, because we've got an old and reputable computer science university there. Next to Iași's district is Suceava, another important district.
EU may not be interested in this region, however crippling this region due to a lack of infrastructure projects is going to cripple Romania.
Of course, the EU isn't to blame for us not being able to build one freaking highway that connects Bucharest and Iași, just saying that it's very shortsighted to dismiss infrastructure projects based on proximity with the former USSR.
Ah, I hadn’t realised OP was talking about the region of Romania - and yes, it’s heavily industrialised, with a single lane in each direction road as the main corridor. We saw a truck barrel off it into a field, when it was trying to overtake another truck.
Flying into Bacău next time - at least connections by plane are getting easier if they're not going to sort the roads (as much as they need to be sorted...).
The EU is working on extending the TEN-T road and rail network to Moldova and Ukraine as part of its Eastern Partnerships initiative [1], and they'll connect with existing and new corridors in EU member states. This will benefit Romania's Moldavia region, where there were no TEN-T corridors in the previous update in 2013, but is the region that borders both the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.
Suceava, where this 1-meter motorway was built, will likely find itself on a corridor between Bucharest and Lviv (UA) and on another from Cluj-Napoca to Iași and Chișinău (MD) and Odessa (UA). This will unlock EU funding bring upgraded roadways and railways to this region.
You can witness this firsthand when driving through Slovenia and Croatia. They have a highway network that surpasses North America in quality, which is above and beyond what these countries could afford on their own.
EU regional and convergence funds really helped in the case of Ireland. Yes, there are claims that the money was misspent at times, and Dublin benefited the most (as ever), but a whole bunch of motorways were built from Dublin to the main towns in the country: Belfast, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, plus a Dublin orbital.
Problem is, Ireland converged and the money dried up! Now we got to fund major infrastructure projects ourselves and we haven't really done that since the Victorian era when we were part of the British empire! (I kid you not.)
There was this joke back in the day, what's the easiest way to make loads of money? Lie down and pretend you're a road. Dumb joke but it wasn't wrong, billions were spent.
> While it's often the same multinational consortia who bid on and win
Maybe identifying why the same companies keep getting these contracts and under-delivering and/or merely uses subcontractors. Then attempt to fix that system as a first step before throwing more money at the problem?
Possibly by introducing more competition by making the bidding process easier, hiring multiple companies by breaking down the projects into smaller pieces, having strings tied to contracts based on performance, bonuses and other financial rewards to incentivize reaching goals under budget, include funding for an oversight team to monitor paper trails and check who gets paid + their connections to government, demand public transparency reports, etc.
There aren't a huge number of companies that actually build highways, and generally in order to bid you need to meet certain criteria, the problem is the "quality" part of the criteria isn't very strictly monitored.
Projects are already broken down into smaller pieces and there are penalties if you don't meet deadlines and/or some quality aspects.
There's definitely a lot to improve but in a country where you find corruption at every level it's very difficult to improve upon the situation, since many politicians have a direct interest in keeping things the way they are, as they get to pocket some cash either via bribes or sending some work to their friends' companies when work needs to be subcontracted and getting a slice of that pie later.
Some of the politicians that got busted ended up revealing systems where you would pay, as standard, 10% or more of the contract's value if your company got the job, so we really need to focus on solving this corruption thing and then we can work on the quality aspect as well.
Some years ago, before I left, using the Transilvania Highway to get anywhere, it took longer to get to the highway than it took to drive the entire length of the highway.
Before moving to Europe in 2005, my impression of former-communist countries was that they were all poor/backwards: this was the only context you would have ever hear about them growing up in Israel in the late 80s/90s.
Furthermore the majority of my extended family left the Soviet Union in the 90s but my grandparents came over long before that (fraternal in the 1930s and maternal in the 40s right after WW2). Neither the old nor new arrivals ever talked about their former homelands in a positive way.
To my surprise many former communist countries/cities neighbouring Austria & Germany (I lived in the former for 8 years and in the latter for 5) actually seemed more or less the same as their western counterparts, or least the parts of them that I visited (Prague, Brno, Cracow, to a lesser extent Budapest, Ljubljana & Bratislava).
I therefor assumed the supposed backwardness was mostly just propaganda. But reading the above makes me think that the closer approximation to the truth is that even European (i.e. not central-asian former soviet republics) former-communist countries vary a lot & can't be that simply pigeon-holed.
Yep. I think it seems highly correlated to geography: the closest they are to "old EU" states in central/Western Europe the more successful they seem to be. See Slovenia & Czech Rep vs Bulgaria.
The EU is a critical source of funding for major infrastructure projects, especially for newer members who also have access to convergence funds. Road projects are expensive not only because of costs in design, land acquisition, and construction materials, but because they require large amounts of labor over several years. While it's often the same multinational consortia who bid on and win such construction projects, these firms aren't set up to do everything by themselves, and partner with local subcontractors for much of the work. The way work gets subcontracted makes this process vulnerable to corruption and graft. But sometimes it's the big consortia that get themselves into a problematic situation: just read up on Bechtel and Viaduct at Suplacu de Barcău.
EU transport and convergence funds might be a big help, but they do come with a few strings attached: they have to be used for projects that can be justified though a regional or EU-wide lens. On top of the slow pace of progress on the matter, Moldavia has an unfortunate geographic situation that puts it far away from the most important transit corridors -- the TEN-T corridors -- that EU desires to prioritize. In Romania's case, this means that connections towards Hungary and Bulgaria have so far made more progress than connections towards Ukraine and Moldova.
[1] https://www.euronews.com/2018/12/07/which-countries-in-europ...