A society which, during 40 years of communism, learnt to expect handouts from the state, is difficult to reform.

But even so, Romania's big problem is that, apart from what can appear legitimate from those who have these expectations - pensioners with special pensions are such a category, which has come into the spotlight in the last few days - one does not really raise the point of whether it pays to offer state benefits to some at the price of collapsing the system or of compromising it in the long run, says professor Marian Preda, dean of the department of Sociology and Social Work in Bucharest.

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