If, however, the managers and Romanian businessmen who had the chance to experience both the education system and business environment here and abroad say this, their verdicts sound not only realistic, but also more encouraging. Let us see what they have to say.

Let us imagine Romania as a castle built from playing cards, in a contest where what matters is to use as many cards in the shortest time possible. We, the creative people that we are, put cards wherever we could, as fast as we could. The other competitors, Germany, France or maybe even Poland, had the advantage of getting into the game early and built solid castles; our only chance was to build fast. But the crisis changed the rules of the game in the meantime. Now, whoever wants to stay in the competition has to have a solid, stable structure, with infrastructure, education and industry, with a simple and consistent fiscal and legal system. And this is where we start with a handicap again.

Moving beyond figures of speech, we will say again, as many other commentators have, that for Romania, the crisis is an opportunity to take a little break from the rush of the last four or five years and to be forced to think long term. For such an exercise in thinking, we need the people who got an education and worked in other economies, those of the solid castles. They can see Romania objectively and critically but can also contribute to the change of the local business environment and maybe even of the society.

”Has anybody said it, that normality in Romania is a luxury?” Anca Podoleanu asked us about a statement of hers. Yes, others did, as well, or at least thought about it. They are very well aware that in the countries where they studied and worked, it is normal to get fair public services and a fiscal regime that does not change every year.

Anca Podoleanu is the former human resources manager of telecommunications operator Vodafone. Today she has her own HR consultancy, Choice Consulting. She went to elementary school in New York and got an MBA in Canada, where she worked after that. She says that the Romanian economy does not know what its specialities are and this is where many problems stem from. The advantage of Romanians, on the other hand, compared to others, is that they are faster, more dynamic and often have a more developed entrepreneurial spirit, because the economy forced them to. This is what Andrei Caramitru, partner with McKinsey advisory firm, who runs the office in Bucharest, believes. Caramitru went to college in Switzerland and worked there until he returned to the country in 2007, when the local McKinsey office opened.

Another consultant how knows the difference between our and ”their” managers is Codrut Pascu, managing partner of Roland Berger Romania. He joined the British company after completing his education in economics at the ASE (Academy of Economic Studies) in Bucharest. He then attended a master programme at Fontainebleau, one of the most powerful schools of business in Europe and worked for the company’s offices in France and at the headquarters in London for more than four years, before returning to the Bucharest office. He says managers have changed a lot for the better over the last few years and results will become visible in society in the medium and long run. He too feels that Romania can change for the better with the help of the private sector, where organisations can instil healthy values and value systems in people. ”Education plays an important part here, too, though,” Pascu says. He means the pragmatism instilled by colleges abroad.