A generation has come of age

When, on Tuesday evening, the Government of Romania adopted an emergency decree which essentially decriminalized graft, and rushed to publish it in the Official Gazette at 1AM the next day, democracy in our country seemed to have sunk at levels not seen since the early ‘90s.

It was late in the evening when the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Justice came out to the press conference, the former to flaunt a Budget which included many social measures, the latter to make his own announcement about the decree amending the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure. The journalists all but ignored the Minister of Finance and focused instead on Mr. Iordache, the Minister of Justice. Each question was greeted by Mr. Iordache with more hostility and his every answer ended with a dry, confrontational and almost menacing phrase “Another question!”

The press conference was still in full swing when social media caught flame and Romanians took to the streets to protest. That evening, thousands gathered in front of the government building, Victoria Palace. “Like thieves in the night!” was one of the most popular chants.

Every day after that, the streets of Romania were filled with hundreds of thousands of Romanians who felt cheated, humiliated and despised by their own government. Most were students and young professionals. Many had participated in earlier movements of protest; many more had never done so and had not even bothered to show up on election day just a few weeks previously.

What made them suddenly take ownership of their lives, their community and their country is something History will no doubt investigate at length. We have now witnessed the coming of age of a whole generation, who burst onto the political scene fully armed with reason, arguments and a deep passion for European values.

(Photo credit)

The generation of their parents had overthrown the yoke of Ceausescu’s criminal regime, but had failed to fully part with the vestiges of Communism. In 1990, while still having the first taste of freedom, the people of Bucharest gathered in several great civil rallies, calling for the resignation of the President, Ion Iliescu, a Moscow-educated Communist who had nevertheless been the leading figure of the 1989 Revolution. These rallies, which galvanised the students and the intellectuals of the day, were brutally smashed when Ion Iliescu called to Bucharest the miners from the Jiu Valley. In scenes of indescribable violence, the young flowers of democracy wilted beneath the grey boots of the miners. There followed many years when Romania gradually enacted reforms, culminating in 2007 with becoming a full member of the European Union. Nevertheless, politicians still appeared untouchable despite their flagrant corruption. Consequently, interest in politics steadily decreased, reaching historical lows in the 2016 elections, with younger generations feeling particularly blasé about this topic.

Yet now, with their blatant attack on the Judiciary, the Social-Democratic government managed to galvanise the people in an unprecedented way. Young Romanians took to the streets to protest in spectacular way. Vocal against the government, they were soft-spoken with each other. They didn’t shy away from shouting insults at the government, but were impeccably polite to the law enforcement officers. When several hundred hooligans arrived at the protest in Bucharest and attacked the gendarmes, with the transparent intent of braking up the rally, protestors immediately isolated them and shouted “No Violence!”, “That is not the way!” and even went to far as to try and create a human wall in front of the hooligans to stop them attacking the gendarmes. This silent, discreet heroism became the norm at these rallies, and generosity was displayed at every occasion. People brought snacks and warm beverages and distributed them for free. In a country where littering is common, people took great pains to avoid it and volunteers stayed late into the night to make the square impeccably clean. In a country where business owners are generally distrusted for their love of profit and heavy demands on employees, many businesses offered their services for free to protestors (free beverages, free food, free accommodation) and allowed employees leave or flexible hours in order to allow them to take part in protests.

There was anger at the government, but humour was the pressure valve which prevented it from turning into violence. Every evening, there appeared more signs, some serious, some bitterly funny (here and here). People shouted their anger, but took care to remain informed. Their demands evolved in step with the latest developments. Laws were read avidly and debated, in the street and in the press. When it became known that an interim government cannot, by law, withdraw an emergency decree, people adapted and asked the current government to rescind the decree, and ONLY THEN resign. When it became known that rescinding the decree might, by a quirk of the law, allow it to still produce effects, the people immediately asked for it not to be rescinded, but rather annulled.

Social media was instrumental in keeping people connected and, despite the received wisdom that technology alienates and isolates humans, it was a fantastic bridge between Romanians in the streets and those at home, between those in Bucharest and those in other cities. In an unprecedented feat, at 10PM every night, Romanians protesting all over the country stopped and chanted the national anthem.

Though stifled and delayed in 1990, democracy has bloomed again, a generation later. This generation has decided to stand its ground and halt corruption. This generation has decided to stay in Romania and to finally take personal responsibility for its future.

After days of unprecedented – and completely unexpected – protests, the government has decided to relent. This evening, the prime minister has announced he would summon the Cabinet on Sunday and identify the best legal way to ensure the emergency decree does not produce effects.

It is a great victory for citizens in Romania. But it is a victory which needs to be consolidated. The street cannot defend democracy at every turn. It is the task of political institutions, political parties, of the independent press, of the NGOs. The President, who has made sure he is seen as an ally, but crucially not the leader of the street protests, has gained immense respect. The Judiciary seems, for the time being, shielded against abrupt changes. There was even a visible change in the editorial policy of some news channels, which turned much more favourable to the protests towards the end.

The future is not certain, but Romanians seem ready to meet it with optimism and, if need be, with a witty sign in hand. 

Protests across Romania

On Friday, January 14th, the people of Bucharest took to the streets in protest, following a tense political week. Several days earlier, the President of Romania, Traian Basescu, has proposed a new and controversial Healthcare Reform Law. The problems with this project were numerous. Firstly, the Constitution of Romania does not provide the Presidency with the right of legislative initiative, and the fact that the Ministry of Healthcare has obediently accepted this presidential project as its own served only to highlight that the separation of powers in our state was endangered. Secondly, several provisions in the text made it apparent that the current government wished to transform parts of the healthcare system into sinecures for their cronies. In doing so, they have antagonised one of the most respected professionals in the Emergency Healthcare system, Dr. Raed Arafat, who had almost single-handedly created an integrated early response system, designed to arrive quickly at accident sites, provide emergency medical care to victims and transport them to the nearest hospital. This integrated system, the SMURD, has in the mean time become synonymous with efficiency and professionalism, and President Basescu’s perceived attack on it – as well as his inelegant treatment of Dr. Arafat himself – has caused much anger among the population.  

This was the last drop in a cup of discontentment that had been filled over the past few years as the government grew increasingly corrupt, haughty and distant from the people, while at the same time becoming ever more dependent on the whims of a single person, President Traian Basescu.


And so it happened that the people who took to the streets in Targu Mures and in Cluj to make public their solidarity with Dr. Arafat were followed across Romania by people who started venting their anger at the President and called for his resignation.


Thousands of people gathered in Bucharest, first in front of Cotroceni Palace (the official residence of the President) and then in University Square (a place charged with symbolism, as it was here that people had gathered in 1989 to protest against Communism and in the early ‘90s to protest against the Neo-Communists then in power, thus becoming synonymous with the Romanian desire for freedom and civil liberties). They called for the resignation of President Basescu, who was again accused of having gained the second mandate by means of fraud, for the resignation of the whole Government, seen as incompetent and corrupt, and for early elections, as opposed to what the Government had proposed, namely postponing local elections from July until November.

This decision of the Government, of postponing local elections and bundling them with Parliamentary elections, is most unfortunate for our democratic system. During the electoral campaign, politicians will not be able to discuss efficiently neither local nor national themes and the result will be a cacophony of interventions: thirty days in which “local taxes” will compete for the attention of the voters with the “national healthcare system” and “sewage problems” with “our position with regard to the EU fiscal union”. What is more, people will be asked to vote for no less than six different things: local councillors, Mayor, County councillors, President of the County Council, Deputy and Senator. Imagine the confusion and the number of ballots cancelled for having been placed in the wrong ballot box.  


It is a sad day for a politician to owe his seat in one of the Chambers of the Parliament or in a Council to the sheer confusion of the electorate, but such is the disdain shown by the current Government to basic democratic principles that they will stoop even as low as that.


It is for these reasons that the people have taken to the streets and that the Opposition forces have called upon their sympathisers to join them in a march organised on Thursday, the 19th of January.

On the virtues of the flat tax

Just the other day JP Floru posted on the Adam Smith Institute blog that flat tax would be an excellent solution for Britain’s taxpayers to pay less, while at the same time for the British state budget to receive, in the near future, more.

He mentions a few advantages flat tax would have over the system currently employed:

• 1. Increase revenue as the black economy will disappear; tax exiles will repatriate their fortunes; and instead of paying for expensive advisers the rich will simply pay the tax;
• 2. Increase the revenue as the economy will grow (as was the case when Thatcher and Reagan cut taxes);
• 3. Maintain a zero rate for those who are less well off by putting the threshold from which tax becomes payable at a high enough level;
• 4. Do away with a large chunk of the HM Revenue’s expensive administration

This is an interesting point of view, as in Romania politicians on the Opposition side are envisaging the reinstatement of a progressive tax in the likely event that they would come to power in 2012 (though, one must say, to their credit, that they take the current level of 16% as the ceiling and think of cutting taxes for the poorer rather than increase them for the richer).

There are, I believe, a few arguments against this system of taxation, at least if one looks at things through the lens of classical liberalism, which the National Liberal Party claims as its doctrine.

Firstly, it goes against the principle of equality of chances: people should be equal at the starting point, not at the finishing line. It is a fair thing for all to know that they must pay the same percentage of their income and thus allow their personal creativity and hard work to produce as much wealth as they can. Why should someone who is a more productive member of society be forced to pay a higher percentage of his income? Why should this person be penalised by the state? It is as if the state told him “I know you are good at producing wealth, but I’m quite certain you are incapable of spending it properly, so I’m going to relieve you of that burden...”

Secondly, tax is really just a price we all pay for the services we are being provided with by the state, services without which we, as individuals, could not maximise our potential. I am thinking here mainly of personal and national security, justice and other such things. But these things are being enjoyed by all in fairly equal measure, so why are the richer being taxed more? If one takes the logic further, one is compelled to admit that the state actually benefits the poor more than it does the rich: the better off are more likely to seek education for their children in private schools (or ‘public schools’, as they are called in the UK, by some irony of language), to seek healthcare in private clinics, to seek protection by employing private bodyguards; while at the same time being less likely to seek state pensions. So, in essence, in a progressive tax system, the rich are asked to pay more in order to fund a state from which they benefit less. How exactly is that fair?

That is not to mention that, thirdly, the richer do end up paying more even under this scheme – since paying 16% of 10000 RON is at any rate more that paying 16% of 1000 RON. It would therefore be utterly unbalanced to ask them to surrender as much as 40% of their income, as demanded by some of the more radical proposals put forward by the Social-Democrats, the other major Opposition party.

Certainly, the arguments in favour of the flat tax do not end here, but nor will the debate around it. There will be – doubtlessly – more opportunities to express them.