ROMANIA: Romania has announced the lifting of a ban on adoptions of Romanian children by couples outside the country.
The move, to be implemented on November 15th, follows concerted pressure by the US to lift the ban or jeopardise being invited to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on November 22nd.
However, if Romania does lift the ban to facilitate Nato membership, it will antagonise the EU, which lobbied for a moratorium on such adoptions.
The ban was introduced in 2001 under pressure from Baroness Emma Nicholson, the EU rapporteur for Romania and a former director of Save the Children. She accused the country of selling its children on the international market to the highest bidder.
International adoptions out of Romania cost around $30,000.
According to Lady Nicholson, many of the children were not abandoned, as had been thought. Instead, local authorities were putting "improper pressure" on parents for whom the lucrative trade in children for inter-country adoption was financially irresistible.
"Most of these children are not orphans. They have been abandoned or 'given to the state', frequently under improper pressures," she said.
Mr Jonathan Scheele, the European Commission head of mission in Romania, said it wanted the ban to continue until the government had proper procedures in place.
Earlier this year, the American embassy to the European Commission offices in Brussels said Romania risked being turned down for Nato membership if the adoptions moratorium continued. US politicians and the embassy in Bucharest have come under sustained pressure from potential adopters, angry they cannot adopt. Romanian children were particularly attractive to American families because they are white.
It is thought that 1,500 Romanian children have been adopted in Ireland since 1990.