Hazardous dilettantism
For a few weeks now, the Romanian society has been virtually paralysed again around themes that have nothing to do with today’s stringent concerns of the public: the re-organisation of the territory and a constitutional review. But Romania is not an exception, as it just follows the dangerous trend set by many Western countries that impose themes, policies and armed conflicts which are driving farther and farther away from the needs and aspirations of the majority of their populations. The world leaders have become much too powerful and much too arrogant to be able to understand and act by feeling the pulse of the society.
The big fiasco of global economic, financial, commercial and agricultural policies have demonstrated to the general public everywhere that governments do not always know how to make the best decisions. It has become apparent with the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis, followed by the economic recession, which shook the capitalist system from its foundation, with the oil crisis and, not least, the food crisis. All these extremely serious problems facing mankind are founded on the speculative nature of markets and rating agencies who did not hesitate to award triple-A ratings to Wall Street banks all throughout 2008. In fact, the world is not confronted by a food crisis or oil crisis (not yet), but by a price crisis, determined by the stock markets’ panic. The sad truth is that the world no longer lives in the present, daily ‘reality’ becoming the projection of a future imagined by neurotic traders many of whom addicted to doping substances. But this ‘reality’ has dramatic consequences on the poorest populations. We should not forget that the spark of Arab revolutions was lit by poverty and unemployment and not by some unstoppable democratic urge, irrespective how legitimate this is.
While three years ago, the leaders of the world’s biggest powers were claiming the urgency of overhauling the international financial system, making activities more transparent and better regulation of derivatives markets to prevent a future large-scale crash similar to the one set in motion by Lehman Brothers, everything was contained to a purely declarative level. The world continues to be full of virtual money finding no correspondence in hard assets, hence the gold and silver rush of the last year. The European Union and the Unites States have pumped trillions of euros and dollars into non-repayable financial incentives and into banks – the same that caused the financial crisis – without them changing their business models to the slightest extent.
Great Britain has recently decided to separate vulnerable banks’ retail activities from investment operations in order to help customers hedge against a possible new financial crisis similar to the one in 2008 which has had devastating effects on the real economy and public finances.
The decision is a first step in the direction governments should have taken after 2008 and is part of a broader plan of reforms in the British banking system which the Independent Commission on Banking, set up on June 16, is set to present to the Cameron Cabinet in the autumn. While the UK is taking concrete steps to avoid the new financial crisis lurking down on Europe and the US, the Romanian president and Government’s number one priority is the administrative re-charting of the territory or, in the presidential language, ‘the continuation of reforming the state’. The reason I referred to the preparations being made in Great Britain against a possible new crisis is that the Romanian opposition has had a similar initiative. During the Cotroceni talks, USL proposed to the president the setting up of an anti-crisis committee with a broad political participation including the power, opposition and the central bank.
Unfortunately, the initiative will never see the day, as in the president’s opinion, the top priority is administrative and constitutional reform that – he claims – has to be carried out ‘one way or another’ before the end of the year.
A first survey on the territorial reform suggests an overwhelming majority (72 per cent) oppose the abrogation of the current counties. This demonstrates again, if it was still necessary, the immense cleavage separating the preoccupations of the public and of the authorities. Romanians may be interested, at an intellectual level, in an administrative reform when the real, serious and stringent shortcomings of the society are solved. The lack of hope coming from generalised poverty, unemployment, short life expectancy, precarious state of health of the population, alarming rise in the mortality rate and steep demographic decline, increase of suicidal rate (ranked 5th most often death cause nationwide), school dropouts and rise in illiteracy, healthcare collapse, endemic corruption, excessive red tape and fiscality suffocating entrepreneurship, administrative hyper-politicisation, precarious state of the army – these are all subjects worthy of the Government’s fullest attention before moving to turn a whole country upside down. If the president and the prime-minister want to re-draw the administrative map of the country, they can do it with the pencil on paper, because it’s better to be a dilettante draughtsman than imposing on a population of 22 M amateur decisions with serious consequences.
Although President Basescu had been declaring himself until recently in favour of asking for the opinion of ‘the sovereign people’ on all matters, now he prefers to have the administrative re-organisation bill adopted by the Boc-patented method – by requesting a confidence vote in Parliament, that is. Avoiding the public and parliamentary debate on an act which, if adopted, will definitely cause havoc in the entire society, affecting each and every individual, again transgresses the democratic boundaries of the rule of law. But, most certainly, Romanians still don’t know what’s good for them, therefore the decision has to be made in spite of the general opinion.
The correct thing to do before proposing this territorial ‘reform’ which now risks blowing up also the current ruling coalition, with UDMR threatening to defect from Government, would have been for the president to present a feasibility study accompanying an actual draft law. Anyone in their right mind would find it absurd that politicians fight over an idea, having no written document or a financial projection of the impact the proposed measures will have. But this is Romania, a country where the power is used to leading in a very original manner…
Speaking about ‘reforming the state’, President Basescu claims the purpose of dividing the country into eight regions is the attraction of European funds for development directly by such regions, as well as the reduction of corruption and bureaucracy. On the other hand, answering the concerns of the public, Emil Boc says the citizens will not have to travel hundreds of kilometres for an ID paper or other administrative formality, because the civil registry offices and other public institutions will not be closed down…In other words, we reform things, yet we are changing nothing. It would be interesting to see where the source of all those savings is, as long as all the existing local administration structures are staying untouched… The obvious gain will be the electoral one, and guess who will be the main beneficiaries.
Seeing how things have unfolded locally ever since 1989, the first effect of this new law will most probably be the transformation of the current barons (county council presidents and mayors) into genuine pharaohs. Fewer, indeed, but so much more powerful. Unfortunately for the president’s plans, the European Union seems no longer willing to wait for the state to be reformed and is contemplating the idea of managing Romania’s funds directly from Brussels.
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