As the start of the New Year of 2007 we bravely welcome the new member of the European Union, the new members this year oar Romania and Bulgaria. As my wife is from Romania I have a unique insight into the hopes and fears of there country.

For many Romanians this will be a time for celebration and a final dismissal of the past and its very ruthless control by Nicolae Ceausescu (1918-1989). Although responsible for building one of the largest buildings on this planet was an overall bad guy and many here celebrated his departure from this world.

The capitol Bucharest was lit up with fireworks and I felt a real hope standing with these people and enjoying there celebrations. This granting of the new European state will bring many new things to the Romanians and hopefully a little more prosperity to a country that I found is very beautiful and unique.

I have visited various parts of Romania many times the mountainous region of Brasov is stunning in the winter and is excellent skiing and hotels. There are also the magnificent castle two of which are Peles Castle in Sinaia and Bran castle famously known as Dracula's castle in Transylvania.

These two places are well worth a visit to this country alone if you are visiting in the summer then the town of Constanta on the Black sea is an very relaxing summer vacation spot.

Romania will attract a lot of foreign investment with the next few years as it has been identified as a country where house prices are set to do very well over the next ten years and there will be good investment opportunities to be had in this country providing the investors are cautious and complete some good ground work.

The people I have found have been very open and friendly and I have always enjoyed my visits to the place. I think the changes in the EU will help them re structure the city and help to improve the state of buildings with new regulations imposed for buildings requirements should improve infrastructure.

Hopefully the EU membership will give the economy a boost and stability for 2007 I hope that having both a home in the UK and Romania will bring good returns on my investment on a very different country but a nice one and friendly.

Traffic is probably the largest problem that Bucharest faces how ever the introduction of new speed cameras on the way to Brasov is part of technology from the west that I would have preferred not to have seen in the country yet.

At the moment the house prices and flats within the Bucharest are a reasonable investment and people wishing to get information on this really need to know a local source and see the places and imagine how this place will be in ten years.

Bucharest is known as little Paris and has an Arch similar to the one in Paris as well as many tree lined boulevards and I can see this place turning into a very pleasant part of Europe to settle down in.

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? Andy Bolton 2007

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