Give Herta Mueller a Second Nobel Prize

Why are so many Romanians going abroad? No, not everybody is after the money and the "easy" life. Some of them leave because they have no choice. And I'm not speaking here about the Roma who can't find work and hope that they will in the richer West.

I'm talking about the ones who are still, 20 years after the 1989 revolution, fleeing the loathed secret police, the Securitate.

Nobel prize winner Herta Mueller, an ethnic German writer born in Romania, who left the country in 1987, at the height of the communist dictatorship, explains:

"I know that in Romania, scores of people who used to work for the Securitate are now in high-level positions and this has virtually no consequences. It is not important for the society," she told EU Observer.

And listen to this:

"These people have gained so much influence that they have managed to almost re-create their old network of power, where they all know and serve each other. It is the second life of the dictatorship. Under different circumstances, organised in a different way. And without ideology. Without Socialism."

Please, give the woman a second Nobel prize! This one, for being able to explain what is wrong with that system, in a nutshell.

Those of you who are still wondering why things are still not working in these countries, why people are still looking for a better life abroad, why those who stay have to give in to corruption, read her words, over and over again.

What she says is that communism is not really dead. It just changed its name to "market economy" and has taken over the private sector as well.

Mueller goes on to suggest that Eastern European countries should not have been so readily accepted into the EU. This is the part where I don't agree with her.

Joining the EU was the best chance these countries actually had (and still have) to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Those sick of working like slaves in a corrupt system can travel freely and escape the Securitate agents populating companies – and at some point even corrupt managers will realise they need highly-skilled people to advance their businesses and will get rid of incompetents.

Eastern Europeans can now also go to the EU courts when the corrupt justice system in their countries defies logic and common sense by taking absurd decisions that infringe on their freedoms, property and integrity.

The EU's principles of freedom and justice are well known. Too bad Western European companies investing in the East don't always follow them.

It seems that the Romanian saying that "money has no scent" is an international principle. But even those who currently hire the former Securitate agents will realise, at some point, that they aren't getting their money's worth - unless they hire them for the only job they know to do well: backstabbing.