A country without motorways

"Romania has not managed to build even a hundred kilometres of motorway in the past 20 years of transition," writes the business paper Capital. "I believe there is not another European country that has built less. We always had other priorities, and infrastructure was never among them. Then there was the lack of money, poor legislation and incompetence in the area of infrastructure. Now the lack of infrastructure is slowing down the country's development. A single example illustrates this: Mercedes built its plant in Hungary even though our country was among the favourite candidates. Because the roads and motorways that the Germans at Mercedes need exist only on the drawing board the Hungarians seemed the better option. And this is a case that got media attention: God only knows how many other investors have steered clear of Romania without a fuss being made simply because our infrastructure cannot meet the needs of industrial development. ... Another problem is the unresolved distribution of property. ... The few projects on which work has begun are therefore on a bumpy course: for instance, to widen streets you need the permission of the people who own the land, but you need to know whose land you are going to expropriate for that ... The studies provide clear evidence that countries that have developed economically have two things in common: a legal system regulating the distribution of property and the corresponding infrastructure."

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