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[Bebsi]

You have all heard the recent jokes about cow economics?

Well, what about Romanian cow economics? I think it is more complicated than other countries' economics by far.

You have two cows. You have an all-powerful leader who decides to sell one of them off to pay for an over-priced milking parlour, which is very badly managed. You invite dignitaries to come and see the wonderful milking facilities you've got. Deep down you know there's something wrong, but why upset the milk bucket.

In time, the milking parlour becomes too expensive to run because your leader is actually stealing all the milk. To pay for running the milking parlour, he sells off the other cow.

Without milk, you are fast becoming less impressed with the milking parlour, which is now a disused shed. Eventually, hungry and thirsty, you get very upset and depose the leder.

You then expect the milk to flow like rain, like the leader's replacement always promised it would. It doesn't. You almost die of hunger, because what's really happening is that milk which is being donated from abroad is being siphoned off by the new leader, who is actually more clever than the old one. He also sells off the milking shed...after getting a large foreign loan to renovate it...to his cronies for almost free, so that when you discover more cows, he and his cronies take them and milk them for themselves in the newly acquired and renovated parlour. You are still left without milk while this goes on. Through overmilking and underfeeding, they eventually kills those cows and you're back to square one.

Eventually, the replacement leader is discovered to be a crook (it has taken a while because with lack of nourishment your judgement has been impaired), and is kicked out. His replacement appoints a prime minister who then tries to kick out the same guy who appointed him, but it's ok, you have a referendum to vote the replacement leader's replacement to stay in power.

In the meantme you join the EU. They give you a loan to buy new cows and modernize the parlour. They insist you lock up the guys who stole milk, cows and milking shed in the past. You buy the new cows and do up the parlour and so start producing milk like crazy.

Only problem is, nobody outside the country needs this milk, and one of the conditions of getting the loan was that you are not allowed to drink it yourself, but must buy the milk you need from other EU member states.

The EU doesn't want you to starve so it buys the milk anyway, to store in a huge tank for evermore, but only after you fill out a million forms. How does it pay you for this milk, you might sensibly enough ask?

Simple: it sells you the milk that it produces from the cows sold cheaply by the original leader in the first place.