Brandy Illegal? Romania Frets Over E.U. Entry

BUCHAREST, Romania — When Romania joins the European Union on January 1, cows will sport earrings, homeowners will have to petition Brussels to chop down trees, tomatoes will taste like wax, and homemade plum brandy will be illegal.

So goes the speculation spreading from Transylvanian farmers' markets to Black Sea resorts as Romania, once among Europe's most isolated nations, prepares to enter the world's largest free-trade zone. A government Web site lists 22 common myths in circulation.

The Balkan country has started a national publicity campaign and the European Union has spent $12 million to explain real changes. Officials emphasize that Romanians can expect more investment, better law enforcement, and stronger economic growth, echoing what happened in the other former communist countries that became E.U. member states in 2004. But old myths die hard.

"I got alarmed when an old woman asked me whether it's true she would no longer be allowed to use the parsley she's been growing in her yard in her soup," the Romanian minister in charge of E.U. integration, Anca Boagiu, said. "All sorts of ballads and legends have appeared. Truth is, bald people won't wake up with hair on their heads and those with hair won't go bald on the morning of January 1."

Pre-membership jitters are nothing new. Before the first eight Eastern European nations joined the European Union in May 2004, some Poles thought their pickled cucumbers would be banned for being too small. Czechs worried that cream cake, traditionally sold on open paper trays, couldn't be sold without a wrapper. In Lithuania, salt and rice disappeared from supermarkets as hoarders feared that prices were set to soar.

An E.U. poll released on December 18 showed that 65% of Romanians had a "very positive or fairly positive image" of membership. The country of 22 million people stands to receive $39.3 billion in subsidies through 2013. It also can count on advice and other help from some of the world's most developed nations when it joins along with neighboring Bulgaria, increasing the bloc to 27 nations.