Romania Unchecked

—how a lack of checks and balances, and a disregard for the rule of law, keep the country at the whims of politicians

On October 1st, 2021, after a fire had killed 7 people at a hospital in Constanța, President Iohannis admitted that “the Romanian state failed its fundamental mission to protect the citizens” (Digi24 and Presidency). On August 29th, 2023, after a drugged driver had killed 2 people at the seaside, minister of interior Predoiu admitted that Romania lost the battle with drug abuse among adults (Libertatea and G4Media). A business consultant aptly points out: when individuals (or institutions) behave consistently, the explanation cannot rely on chance alone, but needs to consider that a specific system determines that behavior (Stanciu).

This article argues that the core system that determines Romania’s institutions to exhibit repeated failures, in various walks of life, is the rule of law; actually, a better denomination might be the rule o’flaw (Vrabie). Romania’s rule of law problem is not immediately visible, but is all-pervasive! The state apparatus is almost always under-budgeted, under-staffed, weak and unreliable—also failing to tackle inequality. Individual politicians are more part of the problem than of the solution, but the game of public accountability involves a range of public and international institutions—so far, with questionable results. The constitutional setup and/or political culture may need reform.

Abbreviations 

Current Situation

On the last Sunday of August 2023, a fuel station exploded close to Bucharest; 5 died and 57 were injured, including 39 firefighters (Libertatea and HotNews). PM Ciolacu announced intensified inspections and controls at all fuel stations (SpotMedia), while local media reviewed the situation on the ground: of the 380 similar stations in Bucharest, 226 are a fire hazard (BdB). In October 2015, the fire at Colectiv killed 64 and injured 146 (Wikipedia). In the days following that fire, then PM Ponta also intensified inspections and controls, but to no lasting effect. Grieved and frustrated, people took to the streets in 2015, protesting political corruption and state capture; not in 2023. PM Ponta felt compelled to resign in November 2015 (DW); PM Ciolacu instead proposed controversial reforms in September 2023 (Europa Liberă).

The general consensus among economists is that Romania’s economy evolves spectacularly well, almost in spite of the government’s economic policies. A 2021 Colliers report ranked Romania 5th in the world for its evolution from 2000-20 (Economedia). At the turn of 2023, Harvard’s Atlas of Economic Complexity ranked Romania 19th in the world, 20 seats higher than in 2000 (Adevărul). Yet, the executive director of a business owners’ association says the economy has overheated at least since 2014-17—with ‘wage-led growth’, and imports, and unrealistic levels for salaries and pensions (especially in the public sector), and fiscal policies not accompanied by structural reforms (Burnete).

The minister of finance declared that Romania’s budget deficit reached ~€9 bn (Digi24). Due to tax evasion alone, the budget fails to collect ~€30 bn/year in revenues (Petreanu). Graph 1 shows that government effectiveness is not only poor, but also quite expensive, when compared to other countries—which reinforces the perception of corruption (see Graph 2). An alternative explanation for such poor government effectiveness relies on discretionary power: The Romanian government is notorious for not making evidence-based policy decisions (OECD), and for not considering public participation in decision-making (Mitruțiu, Dilema Veche, again Burnete, and again OECD).

Graph 1. Cost of government effectiveness in Europe, 2020-21

source: Thomas Prorok, KDZ, August 2022

Thus, the biggest challenge for the Romanian government is at the confluence of economy and society. Romania ranks quite poorly on income distribution and income inequality, (Eurostat and Monitorul Social). Hence, political decisions that reinforce economic and social inequalities feed back into an emotionally charged news cycle: 69% of Romanians avoid the news (Draft Four); Table 1 illustrates why. As a result, Romanians either turn to extremist political movements, or disengage from politics altogether: voter turnout gradually dropped to 32% in 2020 (Mediafax), while combined support for anti-system parties rose in 2023 to ~25% of those who intend to vote (HotNews). Absenteeism of this scale is partly explained by emigration—about 4 million or more simply fled the country since the 1990s (OECD; also, HotNews).

Framework and Flaws

Almost all emergency situations appear to involve some crooked politician or some failure of a state institution, eroding trust in any form of justice—a judicial reform activist concludes that law enforcement is weak and selective (Ștefan). Civic involvement in decision-making, or public scrutiny thereof, is infrequent, and often takes the form of furious mass protests (see Table 2). Not surprisingly, Romania ranks last among EU member-states on the Economist’s Democracy Index, with an extremely low score on ‘political culture’ (Romania Insider). Romania ranks similarly poor on ‘participation’ in the Global State of Democracy indices (IDEA). Under these circumstances, one may understand more easily why the Romanian government runs mostly on discretionary power. But, since public participation cannot be expected to exercise effective oversight, what other safeguards does Romania have, in order to prevent the government’s discretion from turning into outright arbitrariness?

Tom Bingham writes in the Epilogue of his 2011 book on The Rule of Law that “The concept of the rule of law is not fixed for all time. Some countries do not subscribe to it fully, and some subscribe only in name, if that.” This article will not follow Bingham’s framework of 8+2 principles to analyze Romania’s rule of law; neither the 6 principles of the Meijers Committee (with their very technical jurisprudence review); nor the elliptical wording in Article 2 TEU; nor the extensive methodology of the EU Rule of Law Report; nor the Venice Commission’s Rule of Law Checklist (CoE). Any such approach would miss the forest for the trees, as recently observed by several journalists (Judecata de Acum and Dilema Veche). Instead, a simplified framework (inspired from all of the above) is enough to focus the reader’s attention to these three specific questions:

• Does Romania have effective constraints on the arbitrary abuse of power?
• Does Romania have a rule about how other rules change?
• Does Romania respect human dignity?

(See B. Dima in Eastern Focus, 2019, along with S. James in The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, 2015; also, L. Sirota in Verfassungsblog, 2023; respectively, Article 1 CFREU.)

The original arrangement of the 1991 Constitution mirrored the principle that no actor should be able to capture the entirety of political power. Such a concern is understandable for a country that, in 1989, emerged from more than 50 years of consecutive dictatorships (fascist and communist). The executive, legislature and judiciary were, each, internally disjoint by design—the president and prime-minister had different powers in the executive, the bicameral parliament and the constitutional court had opposing prerogatives in the legislature, while the supreme court and judicial council had separate jurisdictions within the judiciary. The 2003 amendments to the Constitution introduced three significant changes:

• CCR was no longer restricted to stopping bad laws from coming into force, but was now charged to solve conflicts among the three branches of government;
• The duration of the Parliament’s and the President’s mandates got staggered (4 and 5 years, respectively), thus forcing alternating periods of political synergy and cohabitation;
• CSM summoned judges and prosecutors on (almost) equal footing, but also added political tension, with a couple of representatives from civil society.

The post-2003 constitutional arrangement opened an opportunity for state capture by one of the political actors. PSD proved to be tenacious enough, even though their moves were rather tactical, incremental adjustments—not strategically planned (another meaning for the flaw in the rule o’flaw). Until the early 2010s, PNL seemed to have protected the system of checks and balances against PSD, but finally caved under pressure from the third political actor: former President Băsescu and his former party (PDL) were largely responsible for straining the system in their favor during 2004-14, which created the counter-reaction of PNL joining forces with PSD.

Each of the three significant changes to the Constitution was animated by good intentions, but resulted in defective decisions. Taken separately, none of them would have affected too much the constraints on the (ab)use of power; together, however, they gradually changed the system of checks and balances: The ‘civil society representatives’ in CSM actually function as a political prop for the governing coalition, especially against prosecutors. The staggered mandates for Parliament and President will realign in 2024, allowing for a PSD-PNL alliance to grab absolute majorities (over 50%) in all rounds of elections (Libertatea). And the CCR justices already form a majority set to turn a blind eye to the toxic decisions of the governing coalition.

Without effective constraints on the (ab)use of power, political corruption is ripe. Public perception of corruption is rather stagnant over the last decade (see Graph 2). The EC’s Rule of Law Report is rather lenient when it comes to corruption (see chapter on Romania), possibly supporting the political decisions of November 2022 and September 2023 to lift the CVM after 15 years (EC and Agerpres). Yet, GRECO is more demanding, and tackles explicit deficiencies in Romania’s system of checks and balances (CoE). Romania’s own anti-corruption strategy fails to mention any of the constraints on the (ab)use of power, so no surprise—none of the public institutions feels compelled to take action (SNA). Romania’s evolution on the Rule of Law Index tends to confirm GRECO’s, rather than EC’s findings, since Romania scores consistently below the regional average on all 8 factors (WJP).

Graph 2. CPI for Romania, and relative evolution against the European average, 1997-2022

source: data from Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI); methodology from Piața de șpagă; caveats explained by Vrabie, January 2023

Along with the three significant changes of 2003, emergency ordinances and the ombudsman are two more constitutional features that need consideration. OUGs were recently criticized (again) in the GRECO report (CoE), but they are a nuisance that can be traced back in time at least to EC’s Barroso ‘to-do list’ of 2012 (Euractiv). In theory, OUGs embody the Parliament’s delegation of legislative power to the Cabinet; in practice, delegation of such power is almost unrestricted and unbound, and hence consistently abused by all Cabinets since 1997: A country cannot genuinely face a full decade with an average of 2 emergencies requiring regulatory action every week (see Graph 3).

Graph 3. Emergency ordinances (OUGs) per year, and subsequent averages per week, 1991-2023

source: Vrabie in Eastern Focus, 2019, updated; data from Legislative Council, capped at the end of August 2023; note that genuine emergencies, such as the Covid pandemic or the Russian invasion in Ukraine, had no significant impact on the weekly averages of 2020-23

While adopted by the Cabinet, OUGs have the same legal power as the acts of Parliament; yet, their publication in the official journal, and subsequent coming into force, does not depend on being promulgated by the President. The ombudsman is the only institution that can preclude (or delay) OUGs from publication in the official journal—it has direct and unrestricted recourse to ask CCR for an ex ante constitutional review. And, given that the ombudsman could be appointed or removed by the two Chambers, s/he tends to serve the interests of the parliamentary majority that supports the Cabinet. Only in 2021 did CCR decide that the ombudsman’s removal is not at the full discretion of Parliament (Europa Liberă).

The five elements discussed above paint a rather bleak picture of the constitutional arrangement: If a Cabinet has a shaky foundation in the parliamentary majority, the PM can still enjoy discretionary power through OUGs. In such a case, with the President effectively taken out of the game, the PM may play the odds against both the ombudsman and CCR. If skilled enough to get a couple of victories, such a PM may engineer a different majority in Parliament (vote buying is not uncommon, but was never proven in courts). To wit, in the last decade, Victor Ponta (PSD) led 4 Cabinets, Liviu Dragnea (PSD) engineered 3, and Ludovic Orban (PNL) bred 3 others; Nicolae Ciucă (PNL) and Marcel Ciolacu (PSD) took turns at the head of 2 consecutive Cabinets that represent roughly the same majority (see Table 2).

In contrast, if the PM were to enjoy a stable majority in Parliament, a supportive ombudsman, a favorable President, a bit of influence at CSM, and an accommodating CCR, the system of checks and balances would simply fail. Merely by accident, Romania has never seen such a concentration of power. The average duration of all the Cabinets formed since February 2012 is only 10 months, meaning that the exercise of political power tends to be short-lived. Thus, even though Romania is quite permeable to authoritarian tendencies (Vrabie), the Romanian politicians have not yet managed to align all the elements. In this sense, an electoral alliance of PSD and PNL for the mega-electoral year 2024 may be outright dangerous to the rule of law (Libertatea; also, Monitorul Social). Yet, about half of Romania’s population still equates a lack of democracy with the severe poverty of the 1980s (În Centru), so the elections of 2024 may still be ‘safe’.

Analysis and Discussion

The constitutional features reviewed above already offer answers to two of the original questions: Because of OUGs, Romania does not really have a clear rule about how other rules change. And, largely for the same reason, Romania does not have effective constraints on the (ab)use of power. Discretionary power is terribly widespread in all branches of government, and decision-makers are not in the habit of checking for the unintended consequences of their actions.

In his first mandate (2004-09), President Băsescu used his discretionary power to modify the majority in Parliament, disregarding the potential effects of infuriating PSD. Then, he declared corruption a risk to national security, not considering that SRI might get a foot in the judiciary. He also schemed to get a friendly majority at CCR, which backfired in 2014, when Parliament was allowed to appoint a new Cabinet (Ponta III) without a governing program (Digi24).

In 2012, PM Ponta of PSD and his allies from PNL decided on a range of actions tantamount to a coup d’état (Euractiv). The situation escalated to the point where EC’s Barroso intervened, handing PM Ponta an 11-point ‘to-do list’ (again, Euractiv). Hence, Ponta’s power of negotiation diminished: In 2012-13, he sought to appoint a favorable prosecutor general (Digi24), but Băsescu imposed former PG Kövesi (2006-13) as the new chief at DNA (2013-18).

Possibly from 2005 onwards, but documented since 2011, SRI had signed secret protocols with the general prosecution, the judicial council, possibly even with the supreme court. The protocols were leaked to the press in 2018, creating the impression that SRI was deep into manipulating criminal investigations (Curaj Înainte). Politicians cried that SRI and DNA may have colluded to ‘cleanse’ the political elite, yet no criminal sentence got overturned on these grounds.

The 2018 scandal with SRI was predicated on two CCR decisions of 2016:

• In one decision, CCR banned SRI from getting involved in criminal cases, so wiretaps and other surveillance measures had to be transferred from SRI to the judicial police; in its turn, the judicial police had to migrate from the ministry of interior to the prosecution; none were fully achieved to date.
• CCR also forced a new interpretation of the Criminal Code regarding the crime of ‘abuse of office.’ This time, DNA cried that CCR had colluded with politicians that were guilty of corruption, showing that €260 mn would never return to the state budget, as a result of that decision (Republica).

After the 2016 elections, Liviu Dragnea (PSD) and his three consecutive PMs piggybacked on the situation created with DNA, SRI and CCR: Unable to become PM himself (convicted in 2016 for corruption, Mediafax), Dragnea created a narrative about the ‘deep state’ that put politicians in prison, and unleashed a political process meant to eliminate judicial control over the executive: changes to the three laws on the judiciary, changes to the Criminal Codes, and the revocation of Kövesi from DNA.

As a result, since 2017-18, CSM no longer works in plenum, but in two separate sections, almost demoting the prosecutors’ statute of magistrates (Venice Commission, 2018 and 2022), as well as undermining the judges’ independence (Chiș). SIIJ was meant to counterbalance DNA—in theory, SIIJ would prosecute crimes committed by magistrates; in practice, it persecuted magistrates that put politicians behind bars. Though SIIJ now allows the statute of limitations to wither off cases (Digi24, RFI and Europa Liberă), magistrates are still not safe in relation to politicians.

With a different majority, CCR mingled with the statute of limitations in two decisions of 2018 and 2022. In essence, the Code of Criminal Procedure now allows for a very short period of time to discover a crime, go through investigation, indictment, trial, appeal, recourse, conviction, and the execution of the court sentence; the most affected are complex cases of fraud and corruption that involve politicians (Judecata de Acum). Parliament, of course, has no incentive to regulate a more favorable text for prosecutors.

While the rule of law does not rely solely on prosecutors, the political actions of 2017-18 (the three laws of the judiciary with CSM and SIIJ, the statute of limitations and Kövesi’s revocation) sent a chilling effect throughout the judiciary (FJR and Funky Citizens): Politicians enjoy just enough discretionary power that they can always subdue the judiciary, in spite of international safeguards for the rule of law. And the major political parties (especially PSD and PNL) maintain the view that political power is to be exercised unrestrained.

Kövesi’s successful bid to run EPPO since October 2019 was not enough to ‘avenge’ Romanian magistrates against their own politicians. Instead, her revocation from DNA in 2018 (HotNews) effected the unintended consequence of spreading more discretionary power (see also B. Iancu in Dima & Perju, 2023). The combination of the following three judicial decisions at European level, Romanian judges may extend their adjudication beyond the legal restrictions inscribed in the procedure codes:

• In 2020, ECHR convicted Romania for not securing revocation decisions regarding a chief prosecutor against potential abuse (Europa Liberă).
• In 2022, ECJ reviewed a case involving SIIJ and CSM, and decided that judges may disregard CCR decisions that run against EU law (also, Europa Liberă).
• In 2023, ECJ again decided that judges may disregard CCR decisions concerning the statute of limitations in cases of fraud and corruption (G4Media and HotNews).

The landscape of discretionary power described above is bound to affect human rights, as well. Table 1 already paints the dark picture of a society affected by systemic violence, but the effects are quite dire for the Roma (and Hungarian) minority (CRJ), some religious minorities (Să fie lumină), the LGBT+ community (Monitorul Social), immigrants (Recorder and Digi24), the disabled (CRJ), and for women and youth/children in general (Filia and Eurostat). The ombudsman (established 1997) should play a key role, but the institution is prized for its role regarding OUGs, not for protecting human rights and dignity. Not even CCR is very keen on protecting human rights and/or, indeed, human dignity (V. Perju in Dima & Perju, 2023).

Where the ombudsman and other authorities fail to protect human dignity, CSOs intervene. But the government loathes the CSOs’ clout with international organizations, and attempts to silence them repeatedly. Civic activists had the hardest time during the Dragnea Cabinets, but PM Ciolacu’s legislative package of September 2023 targets diverting sponsorship funds into covering the budget deficit (G4Media). One of the (potentially) most affected CSOs is building the first hospital in more than 30 years, while the Cabinet recently renounced €740 mn from the PNRR dedicated to health infrastructure (Economedia).

The ‘referendum for family’ of 2018 is illustrative for the interplay of human rights and discretionary power: Voter turnout failed to reach the validation threshold, as the referendum was silently boycotted in society (DW). But CCR’s interpretation still holds that marriage unites a man and a woman, in spite of the Constitution (art. 48) that reads ‘spouses’. Also, in spite of an ECJ decision of 2018 (Curia), Romania still offers no protection to LGBT+ couples, and was convicted at ECHR in 2023 (ECHR). Instead of complying, Romania played the traditionalist card, and appealed (G4Media).

But disregard for human dignity peaked during the Covid pandemic. President Iohannis, along with PM Orban and the CCR majority, sponsored a resurgence of the secret services (and the military): Early in 2020, Romania notified a derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights (HotNews), and effectively classified all decisions and procurement related to managing the health crisis (Rise Project). As a result, from the start of the vaccination campaign in 2021, ordinary citizens and even medical staff lost priority to ‘essential personnel’ and their cronies (SpotMedia).

Throughout the pandemic, the secret service in charge of communications increased its influence. STS started with the vaccination platform, but gradually expanded into other areas of central administration, with ‘infrastructure support for digitalization’, alongside SRI and SIE; SPP also seems involved, covertly. Only one Romanian CSO is specialized in legal and civic scrutiny of cyber-security (ApTI), and they can barely keep up with all the changes, both domestic and European (Context). The government’s discretionary power, once again, creates more unintended consequences.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the military and secret services seem more powerful in influencing decision-making. As PM Ciucă (2021-23) was a retired general, the Romanian government recently adopted a security narrative that enforces two opposing, but excessive and costly, attitudes among dignitaries and civil servants: Either “I’m afraid of making (the right) decisions, because law enforcement is discretionary and will crush me” or “I’m not afraid of making (even illegal) decisions, because law enforcement is discretionary and won’t touch me” (Judecata de Acum). These attitudes and the underlying notion of ‘selective impunity’ hint at how ineffective the prosecution has become in recent years (especially DNA and DIICOT).

Both attitudes are widespread among the three branches of government, and may be traced back to more discretionary decisions that never considered the unintended consequences:

• Since 2015, when Parliament reformed the law on party finance, state subsidies for political parties increased dramatically, from ~€1.2 to ~€50 mn/year; 57% of that money goes to media and advertising (Expert Forum). As a result, media outlets turned into propaganda machines, and the capacity for public scrutiny got diverted towards identifying mis- and disinformation, rather than focusing on government effectiveness.
• Also in 2015, when Parliament reformed the laws on elections, political parties received an electoral bonus for incumbents at all levels of government (Politică fără Bariere). Combined with the toxic effects of subsidies on the media, political parties are now captive to talking heads and imposters, rather than policy thinkers; political leadership is now warped in favor of decisions that keep hard-core voters close and repeal the undecided (DoR).

Adding insult to injury, the legal framework allows political parties to get a subsidy bonus for female candidates in eligible places on the party list, but requires no repayment of the bonus, should the female candidates resign. As a consequence, internal organizational policies of political parties, especially at local level, ‘encourage’ women to resign from their elected positions in favor of male candidates placed lower on the list (Vrabie; also, FES). Not only do women get under-represented in politics (Expert Forum), but such a behavior effectively precludes decisions serving their interests (Filia).

The plethora of mistakes in decision-making analyzed above leaves doubts with respect to the actual competencies of Romania’s politicians. The topic was tossed and turned for some time (Table 2, Șercan and Nicolae), but not even President Iohannis agreed to a 2015 civil society request to introduce integrity and competency criteria for ministers (Mediafax). The regrettable downside is that, perforce, PSD and PNL gradually turned illiberal ‘by mistake’ (Vrabie): Their lack of integrity compels them to cover for mistakes, rather than be accountable; and the decisions that cover mistakes are, in their turn, additional mistakes that build a vicious circle of anti-accountability.

Conclusions

The systemic flaws of the constitutional text allow for widespread discretionary power across all branches of the Romanian government. OUGs effectively preclude the existence, or enforcement, of a rule about how other rules change. Along with OUGs, the interplay of high level institutions in the three branches of government brought about increasingly weaker constraints on the arbitrary abuse of power. In fact, the two major parties currently governing together (PSD and PNL) embrace the opinion that political power should be exercised unrestrained and unbound. The only political objective that seems to keep them in check is the commitment to OECD accession, coated as “a rules-based international order” (OECD).

With OUGs so frequent (see Graph 3) and discretionary power so widespread, the government makes decisions that exhibit no respect for human dignity. Either due to corruption (Graph 2) or mere incompetence, government effectiveness in Romania is poorer and more expensive than in neighboring countries (Graph 1). The dissolution of the system of checks and balances (especially the judiciary, 2017-22) made Romania attractive for all sorts of scoundrels (see the brothers Tate at BBC, in Table 1). Coming full circle on discretionary power and disrespect for human dignity, Romania reached, in 2022, the top of the EU member-states convicted at ECHR for inhumane and degrading treatments (Europa Liberă). It follows that, while the judiciary ought to check and balance political power, magistrates are not pristine themselves.

While most analysts consider PSD to be the villain in the story of Romania’s rule o’flaw, another story emerges from the sequence of the 2012-23 decisions and political choices: Rather than a calculated actor, endowed with strategic planning, PSD (and its allies) reacted to the environment, with tactical and incremental adjustments. PSD was just tenacious in pursuing its agenda, and wily in  sharing power with PNL—the rational choice for pursuing the benefits of a mega-electoral 2024. Only time can tell whether this latest adjustment would work in their favor or if the next fire will burn down everything. But, once a political regime could bypass the constraints to exercising political power, as well as the rule about changing the rules, Romania might fall prey to state capture, with dire effects on human dignity, too.

The latest GRECO report points that Romania should fix the fundamental problem of emergency ordinances; OECD has a similar request. The best course of action would be amending the Constitution, but politicians would not easily agree to abandoning their favorite ‘toy’. Political parties do not have incentives for an improved selection of candidates, either—in spite of civil society demanding competency and integrity as the ultimate criteria. Under these circumstances, CCR and the ombudsman are the key institutions, should they choose to assume larger (or higher-order) responsibilities. Constitutionally, they are the only ones that can restrain the (ab)use of power, enforce the fundamental rules of the political game, and restore respect for human dignity.

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(discounting the abbreviations table, graphs, titles, and references)

Epilogue

On 26 December, another fire killed 8 people at a guest house in Prahova County (Europa Liberă). The guest house should have been closed since 2019, but kept functioning without several authorizations (also, Europa Liberă). Across the country, over 3.000 tourist attractions function in similar conditions, according to the national inspectorate for emergency situations (again, Europa Liberă). The owners of the guest house, as well as the chief compliance inspectors of Prahova County, were suspected of wrongdoings for several years, but all investigations were closed for lack of sufficient evidence. Political interference and connections may explain why none of the oversight authorities made a decisive move to shut down the guest house.

In fact, all forms of social and political oversight are under fire: The gambling industry closed down Gazeta Sporturilor, and wiped out the editorial team at Libertatea—these were the last mainstream publications that employed investigative journalism. The real estate industry closed down Miliția Spirituală, and pushed Salvați Bucureștiul towards insolvency—both civil society organizations fought for enforcing environmental regulations in Bucharest. By the same token, PG Alex Florența (appointed in March by President Iohannis) refuses to reopen the investigation into the kompromat case, where police leaked evidence from the Emilia Șercan file to a network of websites operated by a known criminal (PressOne).

Meanwhile, PM Ciolacu’s fiscal and budget reforms placed additional burdens on entrepreneurs, without any guarantees for closing the budget deficit (Funky Citizens). Yet, budget subsidies for political parties (not just campaign finance money!) is at the highest level ever, despite the fact that no transparency is required or enforced regarding political expenditures (Expert Forum). Most probably, this money will fuel misinformation during the upcoming electoral campaigns—sugar coating and window dressing of realities, to the benefit of the PSD and PNL incumbents. Thus, Romania seems headed on the path of gambling its future development, rather than checking on the decisions that might guarantee sustainable and democratic progress.

Author Note

Codru Vrabie is an independent activist, trainer and consultant on matters of good governance, with a focus on judicial and administrative reforms. Codru has worked with a variety of civil society organizations since 1998, but is no longer affiliated with any CSO since 2020. He wrote this article for Kultura Liberalna/Let Law Rule as a sequel to his cooperation with GlobalFocus Centre. Since 2010, Codru is an external contractor for the Rule of Law Programme South-East Europe at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, as one of the trainers in the Leaders for Justice Program; in 2021, he hosted the podcast Rule of Law Rules (in Romanian), produced by KAS/RLPSEE.

Codru Vrabie extends his gratitude to Oana Popescu-Zamfir, Radostina Pavlova, Doru Toma and especially Cristian Lupșa for their help in editing and fine tuning the final version of this article. All the information in this article was current at the time of writing, in September-October 2023.

Tables

Table 1. Sample list of events from summer 2023 

Table 2. Timeline of major events, 2012-23