No Valentine for Copsa Mica, or: How Globalization Builds You Up and then Breaks You Down

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but always felt a bit too tired at the end of the day. During the communist period, the small industrial town of Copsa Mica housed two industrial plants that, thanks to Ceausescu's complete disregard for environmental concerns, made it one of the most polluted cities in Europe. Things did not improve much with the changes wrought by the revolution and subsequent democratization: one plant, a metallurgy, was sold to a German corporation, while the other, which produced carbon black dye, was sold to a Dutch conglomerate. With the wall torn down, environmental reforms moved eastward, but Copsa Mica still emitted copious amounts of pollution; dark black soot from the Carbosin plant, lead and other metals from Sometra. As a result, the life expectancy in Copsa Mica is nine years lower than the Romanian average (that is already several years below that of most Western nations) and high rates of lung disease and cancer. I remember passing through the town during a journey by train across Romania, and the horrendous stench made the dreary postcommunist industrial scene all the more dismal.

But for all that, the factories provided stable incomes, employing the majority of the town's inhabitants. Taxes from the corporations paid for most of Copsa Mica's fiscal budget each year. The plants, now owned by foreign investors, paid the workers a decent wage, certainly better than what they had made under communism. But that situation has changed. Carbosin has closed, and Sometra, citing a significant decline in demand, has stated that it will fire 50% of its workforce. Thus, Copsa Mica's future has been cast into doubt.

Copsa Mica is an extreme case, but it makes me wonder about the long-term effects of the current economic downturn in Romania. The country depends heavily on foreign investment. What happens if and when that money disappears?--B