The first one is a very strict "stiff upper lip" type of serious, strong, focused point of view over life and the other one is a strange mix of Latin and byzantine kind of laisser-faire,  find a shortcut, try and make it work kind of mentality. 

Now what can the ones learn from the others?  And what do the two have in common and can they actually leave together in a globalised world?

If we are looking at the English we will find that they have a highly developed economic world. It's no wonder they have been at the forefront of economic development ever since the economic revolution in the nineteenth century and even before that and they have had no interruptions in the course of that development. Romania on the other hand has been a mainly agricultural country and its slow industrial development between the two world wars has definitely been interrupted by the plague of communism, interruption which is still highly felt. 

Because of the strong, continuous economy, business in England has a steady place in the society. The social relationships are well structured, there are many layers upon layers of social classes, we don't simply have the rich and the poor, we have an incredibly strong middle class which is fueling the entire social fiber. As a result, business is seen as a respectable endeavor and as a place in which people who are successful are being celebrated and are being learned from. 

In Romania there is a completely different situation - we had a very wild development of industry under the Ceausescu era, but a very unhealthy one, as it was not based on long term plans and it was definitely a state owned business. After the 1990 all that state owned business became an incredible opportunity for those that were very well connected in the Government and that in itself was fueled by a mentality of corruption which is endemic in the Romanian society due to the byzantine oriented influences in its culture.

That corruption has been exacerbated due to the huge financial potential that the state owned businesses were offering On top of it, Romania as a state had to develop and therefore most of the business was to be done with the state, and all of these created again a very quick but fragile rich class.

Now this rich class in Romania does not have either the support or the history of a middle class and has evolved from raggs to riches in one swift leap. That's why the Romanian society sees business as a place of corruption. Therefore the society is not supporting business and is not looking upon business as an engine of development and of social growth.

If we are looking at the politicians who populate the two countries one should consider the fact that England has a very long experience in democracy.

Therefore the exercise of the British Parliament is a strong one and elections are being fought on platforms. In Romania on the other hand we have politicians with no experience in the political world. On the top of it, people do not have the experience of citizenship in Romania - not having that, they are not able yet to understand the power of the vote.

The British politicians are concerned about medium and long term development, while in Romania they are basically running four years and starting from the assumption that they will not be reelected.
I don't think that we can speak about liberalism in comparing Romania and the Anglo-Saxon system in terms of economy.

I think that we have a serious competitive economy in Great Britain, which has developed due to the fact that the society realized that competition is good for the consumer and also due to the consumers' behavior. In Romania however we cannot speak about liberal economy; it is more an economy based on opportunities, highly speculative.

I do not think that there is a democratic country in the world in which the relationship between economic and politics is not interrelated. Politicians in order to be elected need a lot of money and because money is coming out of the economic world, in order to get that money they have to make promises, in other words political decisions that will be made in favor of that particular area that has given most to the politician and it does not have to be necessarily taken in the wrong way, it just so happens that the one is pushing the other.

Obviously the business people need the politicians in order to lobby them and to obtain legislation to satisfy their highest interest in that particular area. In Romania it is still done in a manner which is considered being corruptive because it is done at the door of a ministry in which you're trying to buy a politician. In Britain the lobby industry is well developed and regulated so that this particular relationship can be promoted and be controlled as much as it can.

Now what can the one learn from the other? I think that Romania has obviously a lot to learn from any democratic country and that includes Great Britain as well. I think that learning how to be a citizen, a consumer would certainly put pressure on business in order to modernize itself and in order to start working in some strict boundaries regarding the relationship between service company and client for instance. The English on the other hand could certainly learn form for Romanians a little more in terms of creativity.

Let's think about the fact that we have gotten in England to a point in which specialization or ultra specialization is the name of the game, while in Romania we are still talking about employees with wider and multiple qualifications then their English counterpart.

In conclusion, although the two countries are so very different I think that by working together, by having mutual investments, mutual programs and common long term projects both countries can benefit from them. On one hand because Romania as a developing nation is offering Great Britain a large scope of development, on the other hand England can certainly be a very good source of investment, of training, of qualifications for Romania.

Also the two countries can share the common EU ideals although there is a strong difference between the ultra high European optimism of the Romanians compared to the ultra high European pessimism of the British.
So basically I don't think that Queen Elizabeth could be ruling Romania nor do I ever think that president Traian Basescu would survive more than 24 hours leading the British Empire.

articol scris de Niels SCHNECKER

© 2008 The Investor

http://www.theinvestor.ro/editoriale/from-queen-elizabeth-ii-to-president-basescu/