Dean Said:

Would this person really be your candidate for EU president?

We Answered:

Obviously morality and integrity are not part of the qualifications for EU President.


rainman - thanks for the link.

Blair even being considered as potential candidate shows how rotten the whole system really is - it stinks worse than a turd on a hot day and is, what I can only describe as, the biggest insult the rest of the EU could heap on the UK - maybe that's why they're doing it!!

Norman Said:

I cannot find EU's yearly financial assistance for candidate countries for the period of 1990-2008?

We Answered:

Here is the site for 2007 onwards, when they changed the rules. You can probably find a link to older data on the same site:

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/how-does…

Gertrude Said:

In which European Union country is it the easiest to obtain citizenship (for an American)?

We Answered:

Italy

Jamie Said:

Why aren't eu candidate nations required to clean up their human rights act BEFORE entry?

We Answered:

To be fair, these two nations have improved the human rights record that they both have. But each has a long way to go. But you have to look at the overall picture. We in the UK have examples of police brutality. Fortunately, these are rare, and in the two new nations, it is said that the police are getting better.

Turkey is not going to be allowed into the EU until it improves its human rights record. And that is proof that these nations have to get better before they enter the EU.

Rodney Said:

presentation about one of the 10 new members admitted to the EU bet 2005-07. Which one would be best to choose?

We Answered:

Thracians north of the Danube were called Dacians. Dacia was a country on modern day Romanian territory and occupied at its highest peak most of Modern day Hungary too. They battled with Romans that conquered parts of Dacia and brought with them people, Latin.. Roman culture in general. After hungreds of years protoRomanian were formed. Most stayed north of the Danube and some went south. The ones in south mixed with Slavic cultures that came there and today they are named Aromanians, istro-romanians etc. The ones north remained Daco-Romanian or more short: Romanians. As a conclusion Romanians' ancestors are Dacians and Romans.
Romania didn't exist as a political entity until 1859 but as a language and culture we exist for aprox 2000 years. Romania couldn't exist in a political form because we were always at the crossroads of great empires. The Ottoman Empire in the south and south west (Turkish Empire) the Russian Empire in the East and the Habsburgic Empire(later known as Austro-Hungary) in the west. Romania was divided into 2 autonomic kingdoms(Wallachia and Moldova) and two occupied regions.(Transylvania by the Habsburgic empire and Dobrogea by the Ottoman one). In 1859 Wallachia and Moldova managed to unite forming the first political entity named Romania that was still under the influence of the Ottomans. In 1877 they managed to obtain independence and on the 1st of December 1918 Transylvania and other regions united under one flag and for the first time in history all Romanians were under one flag. The 1st of December is Romania's national day. After WW2 we lost some of those regions and Romania got this fish look it has today on the map. The biggest lost region is today's independent Republic of Moldova. They are also Romanians(same language and culture) but uniting is difficult cause Romania is already in NATO and EU and Moldova was a long time a communist country. Some other bits of territories are in the Ukraine and Bulgaria. Also the end of ww2 put an end to a prosperous time for Romania and brought filthy communism that bankrupted the country. We got rid of it in December 1989 and since then we try to grow again, but it's hard. Communism destroyed some sense of national pride, it's sad but we'll get over it.

Names:

Romania, Romanian comes from the word Rome and Roman, showing our Roman heritage. Wallachia = Romanian Country(?ara Româneasc?) but the word is of Slavic origins.
Do not confuse it with Romani. Romani is the official name of gypsies. Gypsies are a people without a country like jews were before Israel. They are about 1 mil. in Romania out of 22 mil people and about 800 000 in Hungary out of 10 mil people. Romani means "man" in their language, it has nothing to do with Romanian.

Big city names: Bucure?ti(Bucharest, also the capital), Pite?ti, Craiova, Drobeta Turnu Severin, Râmnicu Vâlcea, Târgu Jiu, Ploie?ti, Buz?u, Slobozia(from Muntenia and Oltenia regions) Constan?a, Tulcea, Sulina(from Dobrogea region) Gala?i, Piatra Neam?, Boto?ani, Ia?i, Vaslui (Moldova region) Cluj, Sibiu, Deva, Târgu Mure?(Ardeal region: Ardeal is a name for hitorical Transylvania) Timi?oara, Caransebe?, Re?i?a(Banat region) Arad(Cri?ana region) Satu Mare, Sighetul Marma?iei(Maramure? region) there are many others but these are enough i think

Weather: It can range between temperate to continental. Summers are warm to hot, we have long autumns and very cold winters. In summers temperatures can reach to about 35 F (95 F) or even -25 C (-13 F) in some regions in the winter. Transylvania is cooler than the south in summer and the south is a bit warmer in the winter.

Romanian is a Romance language like Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, Catalan etc. Being a Romance language means that it's derived from vulgar Latin. However, unlike the others Romanian is severely influenced by nearby Slavic cultures and that's why it's pronounced more like a Slavic one. You can think of Romanian like Latin wrapped in a Slavic package. Romanian is possibly Latin's closest relative cause it was one of the first that broke away from it and isolation helped mentain the original. Romanian vocabulary: 75% words of Latin origins, 20% Dacian 5%Slavic, Finno-Ugric and others.

About culture, I'll just state some famous people cause our culture is ancient and too deep to sum up things. national poet: Mihai Eminescu, sculptor: Constantin Brâncu?i, authors: Emil Cioran, Ioan Slavici, Marin Preda etc.

this video will help too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCf8NWJ8k…

Include this in you presentation if you wanna. With the info i gave you it would last way longer than 15 minutes so you'll actually have to cut some.