[Plugin: WP-Cumulus] problem with extended characters

I’d like to use this plugin on a websiter.
The problem is some of the categories and tags contain extended characters, as they are in Romanian.
There are two solutions that both would work really fine for me, please head me in the right direction:
1. Teach the flash script to read and display special characters (i.e. ă, î, ş, ţ, â and their capital counterparts Ă, Î, Ş, Ţ, Â)
2. convert all of the above into regular letters (ă to a, î to i…) which would make the plugin not lose functionality (The problem now is that the terms are broken after the first extended character (Asistenţă reads Asisten).

I have tried to apply a transliteration function but it doesn’t work.
(I know, I know… it must be user error…)

Thank you.