Problems that have made the country a byword for misrule - such as a corrupt ruling elite, unaccountable intelligence services and extreme nationalists adept at exploiting social misery - remain largely unresolved. Only in 2000m it was in Romania that the best electoral performance so far of any of Europe's radical extremist movements was obtained. As NATO and the European Union expand eastwards, the success of the most important shift in European security since the end of the Cold War is bound up with the outcome of necessary reforms in Romania.