The mission is led by Mrs. Linda Edwards from the United States and in the focus of the monitors there are the electoral campaign and the media coverage of the campaign. The European Commission released in Brussels the annual reports regarding the progress of the 13 candidate countries to adherence. Mr. Verheugen referred to two aspects which are linked to economy and namely domestic functional market and capacity to face competition of the domestic markets of the European Union. He estimated that Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey do not yet meet any of the two criteria mentioned before. The chapter referring to Romanian economic status mentions that one of the challenges of the Bucharest Cabinet is structural reform and a cut down of inflation.
Stress is laid on financial discipline in companies that belong to the public sector.
On the other hand mention is also made of the foreign participation of the economy of Romania which is a rather fragile sector and stress is laid on the balance of payment, the solving of the problem of the deficit and the dramatic reduction of the foreign debt. Despite all this, Romania cannot be regarded as a functional market economy, as progress scored in macroeconomic stabilization was undermined by insufficient privatization, by the financial losses of the state companies, by the lack of financial resources and the informal sector which is on the increase. Corruption is a problem in Romania while administrative capacity should be strengthened. German officials stand for the cancellation of visa obligativity for the Romanian citizens travelling to the Schengen area During his recent trip to Germany Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, secretary of state with the Foreign Ministry of Romania, had talks with his West German opposite number who declared that that Ministry stood for the cancellation of visas for the Romanian citizens that travel to West European countries. The Romanian official declared, in his turn, that Romania was adopting a number of concrete technical measures that lead to the decrease of illegal immigration and the strengthening of control at the Eastern frontier, a revized visa policy and added security elements to passports and other travel documents.