CAFÉ EUROPE - Timisoara 2.0 D

Diaconu concedes, with no sign of enthusiasm, that in his city of 320,000 people, “the economic indicators show that indeed there is no big crisis in Timisoara today.” www.esiweb.org/cafe-europe 2 Café Europe Diaconu was twelve years old in 1989, the year Timisoara became famous as the birthplace of the Romanian anti-communist revolution, which precipitated the fall of the Ceausescu regime. [...] The citizens of one of the EU’s poorest economies were left to ponder whether the dream of “convergence” had gone. [...] The dynamism of the pre-crisis years has gone, leaving many with the impression of protracted stagnation. [...] With only a slight increase in its workforce – from 100 to 120 – the company has managed to double its annual turnover in the last two years to €5 million. [...] This cannot be said for many cities in the region, and certainly not for those across the border in Serbia, where membership of the European Union still seems a distant prospect.