[huffer]

Well, Romania as well as Hungary and Bulgaria are fully European cultures. Sure, there are historical influences and economic contexts that made them different than mainstream Western Europe, and one can quote "Balkans" as a different attitude, but in terms of mindsets and value systems EE and WE are in the same category, different than India, China and other geographical regions. Not passing a judgement value here, just pointing out the similarities and the reason why US/WE people can work easier with EE people than with, say, Chinese - just as those Chinese would work better with Vietnamese or Indonesians, etc.

As a particular element to note: say what you want about it, but behind the Iron Curtain education was taken very seriously in sciences and engineering (maybe less so in the so-called humanistic areas because those would risk to come in conflict with the official communist doctrine). The technology and labs in the universities were sometimes lacking, but they surely made up in terms of solid theoretical education. So the foundations were there for competency when the computer age dawned - what generally lacked was (still is) the capital.