WHAT TO DO? Well, the spark that could spice up these elections came from the most (un)expected place: the (ir)responsible, (un)worthy, and down right (un)democratic Romanian Parliament. An institution that has almost no respect among citizens, decided to raise by 50% the salaries of teachers and professors all over the education system, in order to boost the polls. And, so started the final Act between the former allies: The President and the Prime-Minister. Cynically, El Presidente wants to give away the money, so his pet party can win the elections. The rebellious Prime-Minister (un)respectfully begs to differ, in order to save whatever is left of his party supporters, arguing the economic doom of Romania would follow inextricably, should the salaries be raised. The rest of the parties have the same incoherent discourse about nothing, a little bit like Jerry Seinfeld, but without any intelligent punch lines. The Prime Minister suspends the application of the law by way of emergency ordinance until next year. So much for the Constitution. But then again, last year was worse, with the impeachment of the the President. What leadership will Romania vote at the end of the next 30 days of political campaigning? Most likely it will not vote. That is the first sign of abandoning hope. Those who will vote, will have to choose pretty much the same thing. There is no specific difference among the candidates. The same usual suspects. Can Basescu and the rest of the bunch deal a new promise of hope that change will finally be acted upon? All they can promise is 50% more of everything. Which, in the end, will probably be 50% less. But, in the words of wisely Forrest Gump, ‘shit happens!’. Romania is used to it.

I hope you will enjoy Kosmopolito!

Stay tuned!

But this time it was a bit different. Surprisingly, the most annoying issue surrounding my move has been the UK banks. (And I am not talking about the financial super crisis… and Gordon Browns rescue plans for the banks and himself).

The situation is as follows: I am a postgraduate research student with a studentship (= regular income for the banks, right?) and I am a EU citizen. What do I need? - Basically a cheap (preferably free) current account with a debit card that I can use everywhere in Europe. Since I will be travelling a lot, it would also be good to be able to use the debit card without any fee abroad. You might ask yourself how I came up with these specification? Well basically that is the kind of account I have in Germany. As you can see, I neither need a flexible overdraft scheme nor a proper credit card.

So what happened? Innocent as I am I walked into several high street banks and told them my story. I expected to be treated as a normal student (we are all Europeans, right?) and I expected to be offered a student account (which is usually free of charge and comes with a couple of freebies). But instead I was offered either an “international account” (for “only” £5 -7 a month!) or a cash account (free but usually given to teenagers, so the debit card is not really accepted everywhere).

So what is the problem? I don’t have a credit history in the UK! And I suppose because the UK has not joined the Euro they also do not accept credit histories from other European countries. OK, fair enough, but actually I would be flexible on that as I do not need a flexible overdraft scheme. What actually struck me most about it are two things: The inflexibility of the banks (since I always thought the financial sector is more flexible in the UK than elsewhere in Europe) and the absolute absence of any “European” rule. Basically for the bank it does not make a difference whether somebody is a EU citizen or comes from a country in Africa or South East Asia.  Needless to say that most banks charge huge fees on anything that happens abroad (withdrawals, purchases, transfers). I assume that all this is connected to not being a member of the Eurozone…?

In the end, I decided for one of the “teenager accounts” and I am planning to get another account next year with a different bank (because then I will have credit history…although having no overdraft scheme makes it a bit difficult to prove that). Another proof that something is not working properly here is the following. I have to wait for ONE week to get the account number and TWO weeks for the debit card. Every other bank in every other country (even Belgium!) I used so far was much quicker… I expected to get the number immediately and the card 3-4 days later…

And I really had to laugh while waiting at one of the banks. The TV showed Gordon Brown explaining the financial crisis and that the motto of most brokers is ”My word is my bond”… It obviously only applies to brokers and not to customers.

PS: And while we are at it: Another issue that is clearly discriminatory is the issue of Research Council Studentships. You do not need to be British to get one but you must prove that you have been a UK resident (which is funny because there is no registration process….) for three years. At first sight that sounds like a reasonable thing but just think a bit further: British citizen would also be excluded if they decided to study in another EU country for their Bachelor. But the rule is not fair here: British citizens can always claim to have lived at their parents address for these three years…  So who is excluded from the whole scheme? EU citizens (that is Non-British) that on paper are supposed to have the same rights everywhere in the EU! Well of course it is also against the whole idea of making Europe the “most innovative knowledge based society”… but that is already the story of another blog post, I suppose.

Update 25/10/2007: So after 1 week I got my account number, after almost 2 weeks my debit card. I even got my activation code for the Internet banking. However, the PIN code for the debit card is still missing. After reading through the letter I learnt that I had to “activate” my debit card either online or by returning a letter. So after “activating” my online banking account (with the “online activation code”) I was really happy that the “activation” of the debit card actually worked online! So hopefully they will send also the PIN soon since without it the card is pretty useless. Then I had this crazy idea to actually “use” the online banking since I had “activated” it. So, I found out that I needed to order a “card reader” which I somehow expected since they did not send me any online PIN numbers … but the next surprise came immediately: It can take up to 15 days to deliver this card reader!!!

So, the only way that I actually can get my money is queuing at the cashier in a branch of the bank…. (I don’t think I have ever done that in my life…)

I have not yet given up hope as it might be the problem of this particular bank. However, I think this is just ridicolous and not acceptable. It basically can take more than a month until a bank account is fully functioning (+ all the other restrictions I have to live with!)…

Just to put that into perspective: I lived in Belgium, Germany (both famous for bureaucracy) and Romania (known for not being quite as efficient as the rest of Europe), but in all of these countries this whole process of opening a bank account (with debit and credit card, online banking and telephone banking) takes no longer than 3-4 days!