This is on the orders of Mayor Gheorghe Funar, who's looking for Roman remains. The students come across as frustrated. Maybe people don't like putting their rubbish into their national flags. This is broken up by a few Soviet-style apartment blocks and contemporary, faintly comical, statues of Romanian nationalists. Sabin Gherman says Funar is destroying Transylvanian heritage. But in Hungary, Transylvania evokes sighs and romantic speeches - the kind of response Northern Ireland used to evoke here before the Troubles. In the pubs people talk about the TLA (Transylvanian Liberation Party) but this is fanciful. You hear gloomy talk of a Transylvania cleared of Hungarians. In the 1980s the remaining Germans were bought by Helmut Kohl for hard currency and resettled in the west. Hungarians have never taken to arms to solve their problems. He also wants territorial autonomy for East Transylvania since Hungarians are in the majority there, by an overwhelming 85 per cent. Arriving in the city of Cluj in Transylvania, the first thing I notice is the national flag. He claims to identify more with Transylvanians, whether Hungarian or Romanian, than with the Ottomans down east. In Piata Unirii (Unification Square) is an imposing 19th-century statue to the Renaissance Hungarian king, Mathias Corvinus. Funar's garbage bins clearly aren't having the desired effect. Of all the lands Hungary lost after the first World War - and they lost two-thirds of their national territory, making the Treaty of Trianon as dirty a word in Hungary as Versailles was in Weimar Germany - the loss of Transylvania hurt the most because of its spectacular beauty. He hopes Europe is going to help him achieve this. I go to a Hungarian bar, where no-one speaks Romanian, then to an Hungarian restaurant to eat gulash. Gherman is small, dark and francophone, with twinkling eyes and looks to my mind like an Ottoman diplomat. Behind the flags, Cluj has the distinctive Hapsburg architecture of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Hot weather to return after a weekend of sunshine and showers, Erik ten Hag: More new signings vital to Manchester United success this season, Almost 25m in fees paid by DPP to barristers and State solicitors for criminal prosecution work last year, Revealed: The five best places to holiday in Ireland for tranquility, activity and affordability, Ivana Trump and the sinking swamp of parasites who kept her afloat with illicit dreams and schemes. "Romania's problems start east of the Carpathian mountains". However it apparently proves that the Romans got to Transylvania before the Huns.
ROMANIA: Transylvania, to most of the world, means one thing only. He's not putting up any Hungarian flags, but he has said that he'll paint the stray dogs in their colours - green, white and red. Funar is also responsible for the flags, the statues, and for naming a (very long) street after Marshal Ion Antonescu, the Romanian fascist leader during the second World War. The distinction of Transylvania, says Gherman, is that it was in the organised Austro-Hungarian empire, while the rest of Romania was in the corrupt Ottoman empire. There are two million Hungarians in Transylvania but numbers are falling. As this is impossible, he says the EU should refuse Romania entry. "I am glad for me that Europe is letting in Romania, but for themselves they shouldn't.". The EU means different things to different people. Says Juhasz, "We don't plant bombs.
It is massive but eclipsed by the yawning void in front of it. Gherman is a Romanian reporter who in 1998 created a storm when he published a tract, entitled I've Had Enough of Romania, advocating independence for Transylvania. That's going to be a lot of flags. Peter Juhasz, a Hungarian activist, doesn't identify with any Romanians - "The melting pot has never worked" - but he is fully behind the tale of two empires. He suggests that we move into the back room.
This isn't the kind of statement to placate Funar, nor would it go down well in Brussels. Romania's economic backwardness is noticeable. The students tell me, surprised that I'm asking, that of course they support Hungary in every football match.
Romania is definitely getting in. I couldn't be more wrong. - an important point for Funar, who belongs to the ultra-nationalist Greater Romania party. He reassures me that when Romania eventually joins the EU, European flags will be put out too - "one hanging from every lamp post". "The EU should have nothing to do with the corrupt former Ottoman empire." It's already been cleared of Germans. He wants greater cultural autonomy, though I'm not sure what this means because the Hungarians already have their own schools, theatres, newspapers and student unions. 2010 is the unofficial date on the streets. Gherman wants out, or at least, regional autonomy. He's been mayor for 10 years but I can't find anyone who's voted for him.
This is a reflex because the Continental was a hotbed of spies during the Ceaucescu regime. If he could, he'd cut Romania off at the Carpathians and solder Transylvania to Hungary. No one I speak to in Cluj - Romanian or Hungarian - seems much interested in these remains, but the dig spoils the Austro-Hungarian square. Salaries in Hungary are about four times higher than in Romania and the gap is only likely to grow when Hungary enters the EU on May 1st and Romania has to wait. The entire square has been dug up to reveal bits of broken wall. I start thinking of the red, white and blue curbstones of Ballymena. I meet Gherman in the lobby of the Hotel Continental. Hiking in the Transylvanian hills you see horse-drawn ploughs and, less picturesquely, rubbish clinging to the hedges. Transylvania is the most developed part of Romania but because it is caught in a highly centralised state it is "paying taxes to prop up Bucharest". When Olivia O'Leary referred to Ray MacSharry's "Transylvanian good looks," everyone knew what she was getting at. Funar is an uncomfortable throwback to Ceaucescu, who shut down Hungarian schools and newspapers, forbade public use of their language and moved thousands of eastern Romanians into Transylvania while forcibly relocating Hungarians in an attempt to dilute their presence in the region. Juhasz says Europe means respect for ethnic diversity; Gherman says Europe means regional autonomy; and Funar says Europe has nothing to do with such "anarchic ideas". It hangs from every lamp-post; it's strung across the streets in bunting; its red, yellow and blue stripes adorn every garbage bin. In case I was in any doubt, I'm in Romania. And we don't give up.". Angela Filote of the EU delegation in Bucharest, says "2007 is the objective for entry" but she stresses that this date isn't fixed. Angela Filote explains that they just need to "fight corruption, reform public administration and move to a functioning market economy". Many have gone to Hungary, where they have semi-official status. Cluj's Hungarian population went from 23 per cent in 1992 to 18 per cent in 2002. But we don't assimilate either. At my hotel, Viktor says Funar is an embarrassment who has chased away foreign investment and that he only gets in because the opposition is divided.