Spring Cleaning and Summitry

  Less than a week before the NATO summit and the city is still going through its “extreme makeover”.  Roads are being repaired, pockets of pansies and primula are appearing in hastily dug flower beds along the main roads ( but so too are the weeds), they have finally got around to putting in street lamps near Baneasa airport where for months we have been treated to the sight of loose cabling sticking out of the ground like so many bare trees. There are signposts in the centre of town telling everyone how to get to districts of Bucharest that the NATO Summit visitors will never actually visit.   They are repainting the white lines in the roads, though I can’t for the life of me understand why.  Romanian drivers on the whole ignore them as an unwelcome piece of road art, and when the Summit convoys are on the move, no-one else will be allowed on the road anyway so it doesn’t much matter.  NATO has ordered dozens of portaloos be installed in the conference venue because the half a dozen that are there will not serve 3000 people, contrary to what Madam Architect of the building believes. And they’ve rounded up about 500 stray mutts from the vicinity of the airport and crowded them into cages at the pounds in the hope that out of sight will be out of mind. But what about the dogs that are not on the convoy routes, several thousands of them?  Perhaps the dogs know better than to wander off in the direction of the hundreds of law enforcement officers that will be patrolling the main routes.  And what will they do with them afterwards?  They can’t afford to feed them; they’re not allowed by law to euthanise them; and no-one wants to adopt them.  My guess is they’ll turn them all out on the street again the minute the last plane leaves.   And there’s a new phenomenon now – abandoned horses.  Their owners are forbidden to use their horse and carts on the roads; if they do, their carts are confiscated; they have no money to feed their animals and so are forced to abandon them.  I saw two abandoned behind a petrol station a couple of weeks ago, looking half starved and in miserable condition.  But could I find anyone to call to have them looked after? Nobody I knew how to track down.  But as long as these poor animals are nowhere near the airport or within sight of the visiting dignitaries, who cares anyway.  Never mind the poverty that forces people to such extreme measures.  Much better to spend 25 million Euros on a slap dash decorating job that will last a few months but will save the authorities from the embarrassment of some critical comment about the state of the city they have neglected for years.   So why are they doing all this?  Are they so desperate to show the rest of the world what a civilized city Bucharest is?  Do they really think a coat of paint and a few pot plants here and there will succeed in distracting European leaders from the childish political games that continue to bemuse the general population, or from the dysfunctional justice system which has put the responsibility to waive or not to waive parliamentary immunity in cases of corruption investigations right back into the hands of …yes,  the parliamentarians?  (No prizes for guessing which way they decide.)  And while they’re preoccupying themselves with decorating and sweeping, the real business of what will be agreed at the NATO summit seems to be going on without much input from the host country.  As is so often the case, they are more worried about form than substance.  As long as they get to shake lots of important hands and no-one complains about the dirt or the dogs, they can claim the summit is a success for Romania’s image.  From this weekend the city will start to shut down.  The airport road will be down to one lane.  The convoy routes, supposedly confidential for security reasons though you only have to look for the plants and the paint to know which they are, will be closed to normal traffic.  Air traffic will be severely disrupted, though not for TAROM passengers since their flights have been cancelled altogether.  Antiterrorist police are scouring manhole covers (where they’ve been stolen, I assume they’ll have them replaced), parking will be forbidden along main routes (if only they would keep that measure in place permanently) and extra security surrounds sensitive points, though not the thousands of exposed gas pipes and electricity junction boxes throughout the city.  All in all, the week will be hell on earth for those people forced to go to work, like most of the public servants in the capital who haven’t been given time off.  On the plus side, travel agents are doubling their business selling holiday packages to Bulgaria and Greece.  I for one am off at the weekend and will be back when the madness has died down. Let’s see if all this effort and expense has achieved anything useful for the average Romanian citizen in the long-term. For those who read Romanian, I recommend a recent article by Alina Mungiu Pippidi on the subject  - http://www.romanialibera.ro/a120496/poale-peste-nato.html.