The EU Integration Game Plays in the Netherlands

Every Dutch pays 24.90 euros per year for the European expansion. This makes 7 eurocents per day per person for a New Europe: that low is the effort a citizen in a Western democracy makes to build the solidarity with the part of the continent formerly under communism.

In the Netherlands, seven eurocents cannot park your car for as little as three minutes and yet the mind set of the tax payer is to ask accountability for all the taxes he or she pays.

I gave the above details in order to describe more accurately the position the Romanian delegation headed by PM Adrian Nastase founds itself during the two-day visit to the Netherlands - the country to hold the EU Presidency for the second half of this year.
These six months are crucial to Romania, as the country makes desperate efforts to close all the negotiation chapters by the end of this year in order to make it for the 2007 EU integration mark.

The current Executive in The Hague is an exacting friend, and may be the most reluctant with regard to Romania’s ability to adapt to the EU standards over a short time.
And the least likely allies to the Romanian Government are the big and small Dutch companies which brought to Romania over 1.8 dollars.
On invested capital, Holland is at the top of investing countries. A list of just a few of the big names goes: ING Bank, Unilever, DAF, Shell, Philips, ABN Amro Bank. Big investments are mapped to take root in the following months in the shipping industry, aeronautics, or brewery.
This is why the Dutch Executive is under pressure from its business people to have a cordial dialogue with the Romanian Government.

Some of the Heavy-Weight Dutch at the Green Table Are:

Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch PM, 48, was formed as a politician in the ranks of the Christian-Democrat Alliance. He took office for a second time in 2003, following elections. Balkenende visited Romania in that year and his opinion would be key to finalizing the negotiations for the EU accession. The Working Lunch with PM Nastase is expected to reveal his stance regarding Romania.

Bernard Bot, the Dutch foreign affairs minister, is a career diplomat, born in Indonesia, and a widower with three kids. A sworn European, he supports the accession of Turkey to the EU, and consequently he cannot overstep Romania from it.

Karier van Gennip, the Dutch minister for foreign trade, 36, is a man with a brilliant professional career in the banking system, both in Europe and America. He is likely to salute the development of the Romanian-Dutch trade, which will go over one billion euros in 2004.

For comparison, the Netherlands exports 40 times as much to Germany alone.