EXCERPT from the BOOK -

8 February 2004

Early evening the Baroness had called from Bucharest. Not long before she had arrived at the TV station for her press conference. She had been surprised by the excited activity there, and quickly learned that the leader of the opposition and the mayor of Bucharest, Trajan Basescu, had organised a press conference just before hers. He had distributed to the press two Government Memoranda for exceptions to the moratorium. The shocking fact was that the memoranda gave, behind each child, whose name was crossed out, the name of a foreign politician who had lobbied for its adoption, described as a personal guarantee for the quality of the adoption. A politically correct description of political pressure?

The Baroness said there were names like John Kerry, Edward Kennedy, several other US congressmen and senators, and MEPs like Jose Marie Gil-Robles, Antonio di Pietro and former EC President Jacques Santer. But she had felt most embarrassed when the press asked her opinion about the most prominently present name: EC President Romano Prodi. So were we.
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